]S"OTES ON ALLEGORIC FIGURES, ETC. 



* These allegoric figures are my Shield, my Coat-of-Arms, my 
^pade! With which I have begun three-quarters of a century 
since, to work out my present social condition; and also, a little, 
my moral and intellectual state to-day 

*My "Motto" surrounding the allegoric figures is of a more 
recent origin, I have coined it,in part, from documents written 
more than 1,900 years, and to which I have added some sparka 
of my brain — to give body and sense to the phrase quoted. 

* Translation in plain English: God! and We also have done 
something to enjoy our present comfortable way of iiving, etc., 
etc. Our wio^^o has always been, "Help yourself and God will 
help you." 

* English of " Labor improbus omnia vincit: " " An obstinate 
labor conquers every thing," 

* Les figures allegoriques ci-jointes, sont mon Bouclier, ma 
Cotte d'Armes, ma Beche ! Avec laquelle j'ai commence il y a 
trois quarts de siecle, ma presente condition sociale et aussi un pen 
ma condition morale et intellect uelle. 

* Ma Devise qui entoure les figures allegoriques est d'origine 
plus recente, Je I'ai forgee en partie, de documents ecrits il y a 
1,900 ans; et auxquels j'ai ajoute quelques etincelles de ma cervelle 
afin de donner un corps et un sens a la phrase " citee," 

* Traduction libre : Dieu et Nous aussi nous nous sommes 
donnes quelques peines pour nous procurer les bienfaits dont nous 
jouissons aujourd'hui. Notre devise a toujours ete, " Aide toi 
et le Ciel t'aldera." 

* "Labor improbus omnia vincit." 

Le travail opiniatre vient a bout de tout. 

L. M. 




LEPTOPTERIS SUPERBA. 



(\ 




AXH ALONIUM FISSUR ATUM . 



AUTOBlOGHAPflY AND RECOLLECTIOiXS 



OP INCIDENTS CONNECTED WITH 



HORTICULTURAL AFFAIRS, ETC. 

FROM 1807 UP TO THIS DAY 1893. 

WITH PORTRAIT AND ALLEGORICAL FIGURES. 
"By an ever practical wisdom seeker," 

b! menand. 



WITH AN APPENDIX 

OF RETROSPECTIVE INCIDENTS OMITTED OR 

FORGOTTEN IN THE ABOVE, 

MISCELLANEOUS, ETC. 



J > > 


> • u > 

> > J . » • 

> » > ■» 

J > > J > > » ' 


> > ' , > > , 

> > J ) , 

O J > » > J 

, , . ' « > J 


••'" 








ALBANY, N. 


Y. 


WEED, 


PARSONS AND 

1892. 


COMPANY. 



5Jt3 



u 



\ 5 



t)S 






Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred 

and ninety-two, 

By L. men and, 
In the oflBce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



• c c c 






: ^' A PEEFATORY HINT. 



Before sending these little agglomerations of my 
recollections out of my hands, I feel, intuitively, I 
ought to make some remarks in relation to them, so 
as to save any one the trouble to make them for me, 
or against me, for, I am fully aware that some may pos- 
sibly say that recolleGtor, L. Menand, is passably en- 
dowed with vanity of all sorts, but especially literary 
vanity above all poetical vanity. These remarks, 
if made, are perfectly right and natural, according to 
our " human nature." Yet I want to apologize before- 
hand for that venial sin, vanity. " It ought to be 
wished " that all %ins should be similar to mine in 
that line^ vanity in the highest degree, and caused by 
the same motives / . , . . The community at large would 
not be worse if not much letter .... I have not much 
more to say to justify my sin or sins, for I admit I 
have more than one, though I do not monopolize them 
all. My prose and poetry, may be, are two of them, 
especially the later, for my justification I would say 
that I have never studied much the theory of either. 



2 A Peefatoky Hint. 

I have always written according to the dictates of my 
heart and conscience. Disregarding the rules (es- 
pecially of poetry, of which I am perfectly ignorant^ 
of the rules, but I like the thing when it has common 
sense, besides rhymes — measured as with a rule^ as 
geographers do), but those of my own judgment being 
a " Homo asper " .... I will not say any more but 
that I am more or less like the rest of mankind. 

Yours, etc., 

L. MEJ^AISTD. 



EXPLANATION. 

To excuse our faults, often blunders, and occa- 
sionally stupidity, we, the sacred as the profanes, we 
quote the classic phrase : 

*' Quandoque bonus Homerus dormitat." — " Sometimes even the 
good Homer nods." 

What I want to come at with this preliminary re- 
mark, is that /, who am apt to find " atoms in other 
people's eyes, I cannot see " a Boeotian monument " 
of stupidity in mine, e. g, last year I got an electro- 
typed species of cactus named "Anhalonium 

fissuratum, and I wrote the specific nsune prismaticum, 
A blind man could not see the difference of the plants,- 
but could feel it, and yet it has taken me since a year, — 
and seeing the plant {and name) almost every day 

to discover my ? I cannot find a name adequate 

for that idiotic oversight and no chance to justify my- 
self. 1 cannot say, as we often do, " It is my man's 
fault." This is no man's fault but a biped — but an ass ! 

Some, charitable people, will probably say: that old 



4: Explanation. 

man is absent-minded ! but more may say : that en- 
thusiast of good wine has absorbed too much .... what- 
ever may be said I shall accept and I shall, I will 
laugh myself of my witticism, but my laugh is of an 
awful Hue shade and not at all " celestial ! " but the 
reverse. I hope for my comfort that my confession 
will be found sincere, in as much that I do not ask for 
absolution, I shall inflict myself an adequate penance 
if I live long enough. 

I shall alter my motto and substitute another better 
appropriated, that will afterward legitimate any stupidi- 
ties that come out of my head. Here it is : " Boeotiim 
in crasso jurares aere natum," English : You would 
swear that he was born in the thick air of the 
Boeotians^ — the people of the Greek province of 
Boeotia were proverbially remarkable for their stu- 
pidity. 

L, Menand. 



AUTOBIOGEAPHY AND RECOLLECTIONS. 



I have been told that I was born on the 2d of Au- 
gust, 1807, in the old province of France called Bur- 
gundy, a country noted for her good wine, probably 
one of the reasons I am more partial to wine than to 
whisky. 

My father was a gardener and this somewhat accounts 
for my early love for horticulture. As far as I can rec- 
ollect I was about eight or ten years old, more or less, 
when I began to try to grow plants from cuttings. I 
have always been fond of cutting ! properly and figur- 
atively speaking, except cutting my fingers ! Besides, 
I was also very fond of reading books treating of gar- 
dening operations, especially the nomenclature — long 
names that I learned by heart, as parrots do, without 
knowing the meaning, which constitutes a poor learn- 
ing. However, later in life I have found these words 
very useful. I found that ** words lead to the knowl- 
edge of things." One thing I have never been able to 
learn is mathematics — I mean that lateral branch of 
it, " arithmetic," the science " par excellence." Even 



6 AUTOBIOGKAPHY AND 

to-day, with more than three-quarters of a century 
of .... I cannot comprehend the mystery of the Trin- 
ity ! Yet, I have always been able to count the money 
that has passed through my hands. 

Excuse me this digression, and I return to my prop- 
agation that I continued to practice until I lost my 
father. Then I was between fifteen and sixteen years 
old, perhaps a little more, I cannot ascertain exactly. 
All that I am certain of is that I remained with my 
mother and sister until the month of March, 1827, 
when an idea — many ideas got into my head — that I 
was old enough to ' Hhink for myself" came to me, 
and that it would be serviceable to know the sense of 
all the words I knew by heart. One thing I knew by 
experience — the culminating one — that the steeple 
of my city (Chalons-sur-Saone, Dept. de Saone-et- 
Loire, France) did not afford me shade or protection 
enough, or rather too much of it, for I foresaw that 
ultimately it would " etiolate " my conceptions in the 
bud ! Then I at once came to the conclusion to leave 
my Penates, my Lares and my other household gods 
and move to the *' capital of the civilized world'' — 
according to the general idea of the French, but not 
exactly to mine — which was and still is cosmopolitan. 

Paris, then, for me was an " Eldorado " where I 
thought, in my puerile innocence, that every one was, 



Recollections, 1827. T 

or ought to be, a philosopher ! .... or something of that 
sort. Ah ! what a philosophy ! ! you will soon see. 
In a few days after I had decided to leave my home I 
was in Paris, in company with a philosopher ! I got 
acquainted with in the stage-coach, who kindly offered 
me his services, as he supposed I would not know 
where to go at such time of night — 10 or 11 p. m. 
When we got out of the stage he hired a cab and told 
me he was going to carry me to his hotel ! Before 
getting into the cab the first sight I had of Paris was 
such a fog as I had never seen before and never have 
since. The Parisians called it London fog. I think I 
could have cut a slice off it. In a few minutes we 
reached that hotel! located in a narrow, gloomy, 
dirty street in the '' city " — the old Paris — within a 
few hundred yards of Notre Dame, that church so 
graphically delineated by Victor Hugo, in his wonder- 
ful book " Notre Dame de Paris." That hotel looked 
to me paltry, dirty, cutthroat, etc., etc. That den a 
few years later became famous from having been the 

spot where the social romancer, '• Eugene Sue," 

introduced his hero and heroine. Prince Rodolphe and 
Fleur de Marie, in his marvellous book, " Les Myste- 
res de Paris." I took supper that night and in the 
morning breakfast bought from a restaurant, with my 
^' cicerone," and never saw him again but six months 
after by chance in the " Champs Elysees." He made an 



8 Autobiography and 

apology for not having warned me of what I would 
see in that Hotel du Diahle. Notwithstanding his 
living in such atmosphere that man was an honest 
man, for it was on his recommendations, etc., that no- 
thing bad had happened to me. I slept three nights 
there. In the day time I ran through the city to deliver 
some letters of recommendation, etc. During those 
three evenings and nights I learned more than I did 
thereafter in ten years. 

The same day I left that vestibule of hell I went to 
take possession of a situation as an assistant gardener 
in one of the most aristocratic suburbs of Paris, with 
a different breed of philosophers. There I was some- 
what in my dreamed-for element. Many green and 
hothouses full of rare plants ; few of them I knew, 
except the names of some ; but I could not apply the 
names to the plants, and when I attempted to ask the 
names of the head gardener — a sort of biped bear I 
he answered me : " You had better to mind your work, 
for if you have any ambition to be a gentleman's gar- 
dener you will do better to learn forcing vegetables," 
etc., etc. To that hint I replied that I thought it 
would be better to work for the people who carried on 
that business, and as I was among plants I wished to 
know something about them; that gentlemen who 
wanted forced vegetables wanted also plants, etc. He 



Kecollections, 1827. 9 

stared at me with a frown and told me to go to my 
work — pointing with his hand to a certain hothouse ; 
" there you will find that large plant in a tub, that has 
leaves the shape of a gardener' s trowel / " . . . .was not 
that description a philosophic circumlocution to avoid 
telling me the name of it % Inwardly — in my sleeves — 
I laughed, for 1 knew the plant and its name. So, as I 
was in contact with philosophers, I durst, I had the 
temerity to speak with my mouth open and with my 
heart also. I humbly replied : " I do not know ex- 
actly if I understand rightly ; your description is some- 
what novel to me and very picturesque. I think you 
mean the Strelitzia reginse ! " " Who told you that, 
Mr. The Doctor ? " he responded, with a sneer that had 
a heinous look. From that I had won the sympathy 
of that charming man. Truly, there was no love lost 
between us. I liberally reciprocated his sentiments to- 
ward me. I had been recommended to him by one of 
his acquaintances to whom I think he was under obli- 
gations, and he did not like to say he did not want me, 
for he was looking for a man. I thought that he 
hated me the first time he spoke to me. 

"When I went in that place I haa some Local expres- 
sions that were not very exactly the purest French, and 
I knew it ; but the habit was sticking to me. How- 
ever, I soon got rid of them — quicker than he had 



10 AUTOBIOGEAPHY AND 

learned French orthograpliy. A few days after the 
coining of that description of a leaf "like a gardener's 
trowel," he gave me a chance to retaliate. We were 
potting some carnations. A young man, with me. 
were potting, and he^ the " neologist in description^ 
was writing the labels, and threw them to us on the 
floor where we were potting, bent on our knees — no 
potting bench. I supposed it was for the purpose of 
doing penance — it was in Lent time 1 (I feel that I 
am overstretching.) I. caught a label spelt wrong, and 
as it was only a few moments since he had laughed at 
me, T thought the occasion was a good one to recipro- 
cate, so I told him that name was incorrect — in my 
village we spelt it with a double r. " You think so, 
Mr. TJie Doctor ! " " I do not thinJc^ I am sure of 
it ! " On that aflSrmation he started like a runaway 
horse. The young man with me asked what was the 
matter with the boss. I told him, " I think he has 
gone to his room to look in his dictionary to see if I 
am right." What, right? that young philosopher some- 
what belonged to the school of our boss, and thought 
it childish to get mad for one letter more or less, but 
he was a philosopher of the sect of the q uieis, and did 
not trouble himself any more about the incident. From 
that time our boss did not make any more jokes on my 
local expressions, but did not like me any better. I 
remained under his sway about eighteen months, till 



Eecollections, 1828. 11 

August, 1828. Before leaving that Neologist I must 
sketch some of his features : That man was typical, 
even in his name — David. I have never known his 
initials. He was always called David. As you would 
say: God ! or his antithesis, the Devil. At that time 
his facial look suggested to me that he was an Israelite, 
but not born in Bethlehem. He was a Novmand from 
Rouen, Normandy. Seen in j^rofile^ his face somewhat 
looked, to me, like the upper end of a carving knife 
with some indentations simulating his mouth, his nose, 
etc. This last nasal appendix was very remarkable. 
It was aquiline like tlie beak of the eagle in appear- 
ance, but to my fancy I thought he looked in his 
mind, always for me, like a compound of a goose, or a 
Iiawk, or an owl, or like any nocturnal animal of prey. 

It is only since I have seen the portrait of '^ Fagin, 
in Oliver Twist," that I have realized he might have 
been a descendant, direct or indirect of that character, 
Fagin, but it matters not this moment. After sixty- 
four years I have the profound conviction that the 
David of my heart and Fagin, must have been iden- 
tical — morally and physically speaking. Only my 
David had some resemblance to the Khig of Israel. In 
one respect my David had to my knowledge seduced 
or hought another man's wife, but I do not think he 
killed the husband, so there was a little less criminality 



12 Autobiography and 

in my type than in our King^ but for some persons a 
King can commit adultery, a crime, and not be a 
criminal as a common mortal^ for, according to some 
casuists, what his crime with one is vii'tue, with another, 
especially when that manKing or not has written some 

religious jpoetry I think I have done 

with my digressions of my " never forgotten NeologistP 
The chords of my soulhQ had touched with his irrational 

hatred are still vibrating ! ! , . . . This closed 

the first act of my debut in life. Then I changed, in 
one way for the worse, but every day adding some- 
thing to my theories of life. 

I shall pass over all my tribulations during the 
year 1829, the most unlucky and inauspicious of my 
life, so much so as wilhng to be gone ad jpatres. At 
the close of that year I had the good luck to find a 
situation where I found a library at my disposal. I 
fell on one work by Lamarck and Decandolle, " La 
Flore Francaise," which work revolutionized, the course 
of my ideas and opened a new field to my ambition 
for new studies, a study not exactly connected to hor- 
ticulture, but which absorbed me at once — the study 
of '^ wild plants," if that expression is proper, and es- 
pecially '^ Cryptogamous plants." Every one who 
knew me, when I told them my discovery of that 
book, laughed at me, and said, in plain language, that 



KtCOLLECTIONS, 1829-30. 13 

I was a down right fool. I admitted the epithet, but 
did not change my mind. What a stupid idea, will 
say my acquaintances of to-day^ to study " crypto- 
gamy " to be a florist ; " it is absurd !" Be it so, but 
paradoxical as it may be, it has been more beneficial to 
me than growing coleus at seventy-five cents per 100 ! ! 
It has in the first place given rae self gratification I 
It has systematized my ideas, in theory and in practice. 
It has brought me in contact with people that would 
otherwise never have looked at me. When later I 
made up my mind to cultivate exotic plants, such as 
Ericas, Banksias, and all kinds of Xew Holland plants, 
I was saluted with the same reverence — I was a fool ! 
such business would not pay, etc , etc. 

But I perceive that I am overflowing on my subject. 
I am anticipating upon the future by fifty years. So 
I return to the first reading of my French Flora, and 
the cryptogamic ideas it wove in my brain ! Crypto- 
gamic indeed ! since they were not understood. In the 
beginning of 1830 I had to leave my library and its 
books to settle a short distance further, but always in 
the precincts of Paris. It was my third year of grav- 
itation around that luminous terrestrial planet, that 
was soon to be more luminous by kindling that " Three 
days' revolution !'' Kevolution that I wished and ex- 
pected since two or three years, at the time I laid 
2 



14: Autobiography and 

down the plan — the foundation — of my religious 
and political creed, with that aphorism : " No kings ! 
No Medium between Man and Heaven ; every one his 
own arbitrator, free will ! in spiritual affairs." 

That year, 1830 to April, 1831, closed what I would 
call the Jlrst phase of my life. Then I left Paris and 
went to take possession of a situation as a gardener in 
the province '' Champagne," the classical land of the 
wine so-called, where I lived over six years, the quietest 
period of my life. There I could study without being 
sneered at, but on the contrary I was encouraged to do 
so. But, alas ! as before, I could not understand the 
meaning of Latin and Greek names of plants, and at 
that time we had not such a valuable work as Mr. Nich- 
olson's " Dictionary of Gardening." Somewhat as by 
intuition I understood or guessed that such adjectives 
as grandiilorus, grandiilora and grandiflorum meant 
large flowers, but I was perplexed about the termination. 
in us, a and um. How I sighed at my ignorance, and 
no way, I thought, to learn, for I was as most young 
men were, and still are to-day. If you have not re- 
ceived a collegiate education when young, you can 
never get it after, especially when you are deprived of 
means. Notwithstanding that drawback I felt that I 
could do something. I was determined to try. One 
day I heard of a certain gentleman — a notary public, 



Recollections, 1831-37. 15 

who was managing the financial affairs of my employer 
(an old lady) — who was a good Latinist. He was not, 
but he put me in the way of doing something to en- 
lighten me on the subject. So the first time he came 
to the place I watched for him and introduced myself. 
With a book in my hand I told him what I had heard 
of his knowledge, etc., etc. He sharply looked at me 
and said : '' What do you want of me V I showed 
him my adjectives in us, a, um, etc., and I told him I 
thought they meant so and so. He looked at me be- 
tween my two eyes and gravely told me : "If you 
know that why do you ask me ?" I answered that I 
thought I knew but was not certain, but what I know 
not are those terminations, etc. " Those terminations," 
he said, " are masculine, feminine and neuter, and if 
you know as much as you evidently seem to, get a 
Latin grammar, and in a few days you will know as 
much as I do." " To get a Latin grammar I shall 
have to go twelve miles to get it" (we were in the 
country). " I know it," he said, " but to-morrow I go. 
thither (to Rheims, the next city) and I shall bring you 
one." I made the remark that a grammar would not 
give me all the information I wanted. ^' I must have 
a dictionary of French and Latin and Latin and 
French." My employer — who was present — said : 
" Bring him also those dictionaries," etc. He put his 
hands on my shoulders and said : " Young man, if 



16 AUTOBIOGEAPAY AND 

you have guessed all that you have told me, you will 
go far, and when you have looked over your grammar 
for a few days, come and see me at my office, to show 
me your progress in guessing Latin." I went to see 
him two or three weeks after, and I found that if he 
was not a good Latinist he was a good man^ and he 
gave me good ad vice. He kept me two or three hours, 
talking poHtics, theology, literature, etc. 

I will continue my course for a little while longer on 
the European continent ; then I shall sail for the west- 
ern hemisphere, my adoptive country, where I have lived 
happy ! ! for fifty-four years, less a fortnight, when 
dark clouds suddenly eclipsed forever my sunshine / 
half of iny life — my Egeria ! my wife .... You will 
please excuse the above extemporaneous digression. I 
could not refrain doing it. It choked me 

I resume the narration of my studies. I was in pos- 
session of the instruments, books, to elucidate the 
meaning of words stuffed in my head. The first night 
I got that grammar I did not sleep much. I spent 
most part of it to decline the first declension : penna^ 
pennse or rosa, rosse, etc., and went to bed reciting: 

Nominative rosa ; 

Here I decline rosa ! as a 



Genitive, rosse ; 



Accusative, rosam ; 
Vocative, o rosa ; 
Ablative, rosa. 



jjative, rosse ; U'ompliment to our friends. 



the rose growers 



Eecollections, 1831-37. 17 

When I say I did not sleep much, to tell the trnth I 
don't think I slept at all, for I think I was still hum- 
ming *']S^ominative rosa" when I opened my eyes and 
saw the light, or, rather, the dawn of day, as the dawn 
of my motions, dusky ! It was a Sunday morning in 
June, and I intended to go herborizing ; so I got up, 
took up ray herborizing box and started across mead- 
ows, woods, swamps, etc. I had walked a considerable 
distance, when I found myself on an eminence, wet 
above the knees by the dew, and not feeling too com- 
fortable, when I turned round and I saw the rays of 
the sun emerging out of the horizon. I was dazzled 
by the sublime magnificence of that Light God! ! that 
supreme unknown ! ! For awhile I forgot my gram- 
mar, the cryptogamous and phanerogamous plants. 
The whole nature, the creation, which I was contem- 
plating with so much admiration that all my moral, in- 
tellectual faculties were .... I could not analyze them, 
was so bewildered it took some time before I could 
realize where I was, my blood still in ebullition and my 
legs cold, but it did not last long. That God-Light 
soon warmed me again, and when I got over my ecstacy 
I began to realize I had often seen a rising of the sun, 
but never in such a circumstance. So I immediately 
resumed my search for a certain plant, of which I 
scented the smell before I saw it. I was trampling it 
under my feet ; it was an orchideae, "Satyrium hir- 



18 Autobiography and 

cinnm," a well-baptized plant, from its horrid he-goat' s 
smell. This is another digression — perhaps out of 
place — but it is an incident of my life and I " sketch 
it ! " And I have many more incidental episodes to 
relate, but I shall pass them over, or most of them. 

I went on with my studies of Latin and cryptogamy 
and a few other odd ideas, notions, etc. I progressed 
moderately well. The first use I made of my embry- 
onic knowledge of Latin was quite a diminutive tri- 
umph for my vanity. I can not refrain from recount- 
ing it. 

I had a young man working with me who was going 
to marry. One day he asked me if he could not have 
half a day to go and see his betrothed. I told him he 
could, but I told him jokingly : " My dear fellow, if 
YOU marry before the priest you will have to go to 
confess, if not he will not marry you ; but if you give 
up the religious ceremony and get satisfied to be mar- 
ried before your mayor or any other official, all right ! 
As the French law does not recognize the religious cer- 
emony as legal, you can choose." He answered me 
that he would not go to confess and would get mar- 
ried ! "Well, do as you please," I responded. When 
he came to work the following day he showed me a 
sheet of paper folded in four parts, not sealed, nor any 
envelope at that time. It was a certificate about his 



Recollections, 1831-37. 19 

morality. No, I forget now, but at the bottom of that 
document there was a postscript in Latin that he could 
not understand — the reason I suppose that he showed 
it to me. That postscript was to inform the priest 
who would marry him that he (the one who had writ- 
ten it) had not heard the confession of the bearer. 
It was short: " Domine, Non audivi confessionem, 
Johan...." etc. I cannot remember names. After 
reading it I told him " You have not been to con- 
fess." " How do you know ? " he replied, looking at 
me with a change in his countenance, turning pale as 
if he had committed a crime. " Well, I know it. Do 
you not know that heretics, free thinkers and ^ bloody 
Republicans ' — as they called me — as they called us 
— can guess a good many things ? Besides, this paper 
tells me that you have not." " What shall I do ? " he 
asked in a tremulous voice. By that time I had re- 
turned his paper. " Give it to me again ; I will fix it 
all right." I folded the bottom of the paper contain- 
ing the P. S., cut it off and handed him both the cer- 
tificate and the P. S. and told him, " JSTow you can do 
what you please ; give both to the priest or only one, 
and he will marry you if you care for the religious cer- 
emony. If not, get the mayor of your village, and 
he will marry you, and that is the only legal marriage 
according to French law. He got married, but I 
never heard anything about the particulars, the con- 



20 Autobiography and 

elusions, nor did I care; I had the fun, that's all I 
wanted. 

From this stage of my condition in that place, until 
June, 1837, I have not many incidents of my life to 
relate, besides what I said before, only that new ideas 
added to old ones, were constantly fomenting in my 
brain, owing to my solitary life, for I had nobody with 
whom I could exchange my views, my conceptions, 
except some occasional correspondence with acquain- 
tances in Paris. The revolution of 1830 had disap- 
pointed me ; from that event I had expected the proc- 
lamation of the Republic, laws more liberal, universal 
suffrage ; instead of that, and thanks to the influence 
of General Lafayette and other lukewarm Republicans 
of the same school, we had another King. The politi- 
cal and religious constitution did not suit me, and every 
day I was sighing for the moment I would have money 
enough to quit France. I tried to get a situation under 
the government to go to Madagascar, but the man who 
could get me the position would not do it ; he had been 
there two or three years and had been sick all the time, 
etc., etc. "I am sorry." " I, too," he said, " though 

you are one of those d exalted Republicans who 

frequently compel us National Guards to take our 
muskets to quell your stupid notions of Democracy," etc. 
He was a good man enough but he was gangrened 



Kecollections, 1831-37. 21 

with rojalism — more royalist than the king; one 
of those philosophers of the school of the stagnants ! 
His ideas were flowing only when he was at the head 
of his company of the militia to hunt the Republicans, 
whom, I must say, were not all saints, far from it ; but 
brutal force is a poor way of civilizing men. Under 
Louis Phillippe emeutes {mobs) were of daily occur- 
rence. 

All these things did not help me to cherish my 
native country, inasmuch as I had already adopted that 
device : " XJbi Libertas ibi patria " — " Where liberty 
dwells, there is my country ;" and that country I con- 
templated should be the United States of North Amer- 
ica. With all such reflections maturing in my mind, 
I determined to move onward ; so immediately I made 
my preparations to leave my situation, and in a few 
weeks I was in Paris on my way to Havre. Before 
leaving Paris I stopped with a friend for a few days, 
during which he took me to the " Sorbonne," one of 
the oldest universities in he world, to attend a lecture 
on botany by the last of the Jussieu ( Adrien de Jus- 
sieu), a family of savants. While there I met a great 
many young students, lawyers, physicians and other 
philosophers in embryo, who, when they understood I 
was going to America, flocked around me and asked 
me, without any ceremony, if I would send them spec* 



22 ACJTOBIOGRAPHY AND 

imens of American plants for their herbaria. I replied 
in the same tune, that I was just going to cross tlie At- 
lantic to collect them, etc. One of them, especially, 
clung to me, with a specimen plant the professor was 
to lecture on, and asked me if I would tell him the 
name ! To that question I asked him how long he had 
been attending the lectures. He replied " two or three 
years." " Three years ! and you do not know that 
plant that grows on the old wall of your father's gar~ 
den ? " It was Linaria cymbalaria, and in three years 
he had not been able to know that plant. After the 
lecture was over I asked my friend if there were many 
students of the same stamp as the one who had asked 
me the name of a plant growing with him. *' No," 
he said, " not perhaps over two-thirds ! ! " We went off 
making comments on the young "savants' we had 
just left. All of them had received a college educa- 
tion. 

On the last day of July, 1837, 1 left Paris for 
Havre, whence I sailed for New York, where I landed 
on the Tth of September, 1837. 

Then I was on free ! land — with slaves not far off^ 
held in bondage by another class of philosophers, of 
the school of the " Roman patricians," who, like 
Brutus, who stabbed his father, Caesar, because he waR 
a tyrant, and he at the same time compelled his slaves 



Recollections, 1837. 23 

to fight against wild beasts in the arenas for his distrac- 
tion. Here allow me a short digression. I have 
omitted above, that before landing and passing at the 
custom house, a countryman of mine, a soi't of lawyer, 
asked me : ^' When the custom-house officers will ask 
you ^ what is your profession ? ' what will you answer ? " 
" Of course I will answer that I am a gardener," I re- 
plied. '' You are a fool if you do that," said he. " Why 
do you not say that you are a hotanistf^ I could not 
help laughing, and answered him, " I suppose I am a 
botanist as much as you are a lawyer ; probably better, 
for I know a cabbage from a lettuce, and you — you 
do not know the difference between a lawyer and a 
liar ! which for me are often synonymous expressions." 
When we passed the inspector he was first. He said 
he was a lawyer ! They laughed for a few seconds^ 
then they asked me, " Are you a lawyer too ?" " No, 
I am a gardener.^' " Good ! " said one of the in- 
spectors in French, " you have a better chance to find 
employment than your friend." He was not my 
friend. He tried to be, but in vain ; he got my con- 
tempt. 

I was in New York, but I had very little money. 
As a compensation I had quantities of letters of recom- 
mendation to people in New York, Philadelphia, Wash- 
ington, New Orleans and Havana. In this last city I 



24: Autobiography and 

had almost the certitude of a situation as curator of a 
botanic garden under the governorship of General 
Tacon, but my desire to learn English made me give 
up all the recommendations except those for New York, 
one for Dr. Torrey and one for Mr. George Thorburn. 
In a few days I had employment with the latter at 
Astoria, L. I., then "Hallett's Cove." It was only a 
year or two later that that village was named Astoria, 
from J. Jacob Astor, who had given $10, 000 for the 
christening, etc. There I began to work my salvation, 
material and spiritual, digging up of the ground to 
plant trees and shrubs, and the English grammar, to 
find the "roots of all evils.'* I have found some, but 
have worn out many spades before I could rest on the 
laurels that I have cultivated for fifty-four years. It 
is in Astoria that I found the greatest number of the 
cryptogamous plants which I have sent to France. It 
was at Astoria, also, that I found the best specimen of 
the animal kingdom's production, " a Phanerogyne ! .^" 
"whom I have lost in 1890 .... That Phanerogyne was 
not indigenous to Astoria, but was a British produc- 
tion, of British and French blood. This plant I have 
cultivated for fifty years, less a fortnight. When I 
saw it for the first time I was somewhat puzzled, but in 
a very short time I found I had discovered a typical 
form of vegetation and felt wonderfully anxious to have 
it in my herbarium. But it was not an ordinary speci- 

* ^avspo's Fwrj. Plianeros Gune. Hence Phanerogyne, 
Phaneros — manifest, visible. Gune — woman, wife, etc. 



Eecollections, 1837-40. 25 

men of vegetation that ono can put between two sheets 
of paper and dry it. Nevertheless it took me over two 
months, and a considerable number of sheets of paper 
and ink, witli all the quintessence of my rhetoric, before 
I could press it. Many will think I knew something 
about it before my finding. No ! nothing at all. Not 
even its vernacular name ; and in less than two hours 
after my discovery of this rara avis it had flown to- 
ward the north pole, Albany. When I heard of that 
flight I thought I had been mystified, and yet I 
thought I had been able to read the inner nature of my 
plant. So I had. I found it thereafter, to my jubila- 
tion. But since Oh, Phanerogyne ! ! of half 

of my life, of my soul ! once more ! adieu ! adieu 
forever ! adieu pour toujours ! Yale seternum !!.... 
. , . . Here ends the second phase of my life. 

On the 30th of October, 1840, I started for Albany, 
following the track of my plant, my rara avis, or my 
phanerogyne as you please. For me these three appel- 
lations suit me. On the 31st of October I got fast 
bound in the chains of marriage. Then on the same 
day we left Albany on the steamboat, where, for the 
beginning of my honeymoon we had to separate — to 
divorce. There were no state rooms yet. Ladies 
stopped on the upper deck and men had to go down. 

When, in the morning we arrived at New York, Mr. 
3 



26 Autobiography and 

Thorburn, my employer, was waiting for us, and tak- 
ing both of us by the hands, and in a loud thrilling 
voice, addressed me so : ^' I^ow my dear fellow ! ! you 
will have to stay at my house as I had proposed to you 
when you went, and you said you would not, and would 
go straight to Astoria. You may go if you please, but 
your house is burned to the ground," and he laughed. 
" It was burned before you were half way to Albany." 
1 did not believe him; I thought he was joking. 
"Well," he said, "if you doubt, go and see it, but 
leave your bird here at my house. She will not fly out 
of the cage." So I started at once, and when I arrived 
I saw a nice heap of ashes on the site of the house. 
Everything had been burned except my bedstead, a 
table and a few other things. My bed room stood north 
and the fire had been set on the south with a north 
wind, so that a carpenter who had been building a 
greenhouse for us, and who knew I was in Albany, and 
living close by, when going to bed saw the house on 
fire and he ran at once for my room, broke the window, 
for the entrance of the house was already burned, and 
saved the few articles mentioned. The most important 
article was a table — a lucky table — in which 1 had 
$300 in gold in a purse. It had been thrown in a bed 
of roses, where I found it, the legs up. At once it 
struck me that the purse was gone, for the drawer was 
not locked. I went to it, opened the drawer, and saw 



Recollections, 1840. 27 

my purse with contents intact. I had had $500 in it, 
but "had taken $200 to go to be " chained." 

From November 1840 until March 1842, 1 continued 
to conduct Mr. Thorburn's business at Astoria. Then 
we parted and I came to Albany to try my chance as a 
florist and nurseryman. I located on the Albany and 
Troy road, on a modest scale — more than modest, i. e. 
meagre I Do you wish to have a slight idea of it ? 
Well ! before the year 1842 was over every cent of the 
five or six hundred dollars, or a little over, were gone, 
and in nine months, from March to December, business 
was so prosperous that during that lapse of time I re- 
ceived $17 ! We spent at least $100 a month. Had 
it not been for that Phanerogyne, that Egeria of mine, 
I would have had to bundle up, to bundle ofiP, for 
climes more hospitable, but that diminutive (in appear- 
ance), that vara avis, that bird of mine, saved us from 
a complete wreck. Not only saved us, but upheld my 
courage, and when the rose buds or buds of any descrip- 
tion, failed to open, she supplied them with musical 
notes ! Now ! you will understand my love, my devo- 
tion, my veneration for that personified providence. 
She never flinched ; her fortitude upheld her will ! and 
in my eyes the exiguity of her stature transfigured her 
as a " giantess ! ! " 



28 Autobiography and 

However, the year 1843 began under a more auspi- 
cious sky. We had had hard times. From that day 
we went ^^ pianissimo,''^ but we never retrograded. 
Some " cryptogamic " ties held us, held us to our de- 
termination to swim or sink together, and we did so 
for fifty years. We swam in a lake of bliss ! ! That 
lake had become an ocean when a cyclone rent our 

blessedness ! forever . The years 1843, '44, 45' 

and '46 passed off with very little progress, except in 
the double line of propagation — in the vegetable and 
the animal kingdoms. But we had got possession of 
a better and cheaper location, 300 or 400 yards from 
where we were, we had purchased four acres of land, 
built a house, etc., where we moved on the 1st of 
April, 1847. We were proprietors (in parte) and we 
were on the way to improvement. Plenty of elbow 
room to apply my device *' Help thyself and God will 
help thee," and I was cheerfully willing to put the 
theory into practice — to work, work more and to pray 
together. As I have said above, our double line of 
propagation required more energy on my part, as my 
helpmate could not much longer substitute musical 
notes for the missing rose buds. I could sufficientlv 
(with elbow and brain oil) do it myself. 

At that juncture a slight fever broke out among the 
community of Albany and Troy for hardy perennial 



Kecollections, 1842-57. 29 

plants, and as I had a fair collection I did well ; for 
three or four years, in the spring I was for a few weeks 
busy in putting up collections of 6 or 12 or more ; also 
a few shrubs. When that fever subsided the fever for 
conifers, arbor vitaes and Norway spruces, balsam firs, 
etc., took its place, but with better remuneration ten 
fold, and the fever lasted longer, and in after years I 
had specimens of Siberian arbor vitaes for my own 
gratification that I sold for $20 each ; of smaller ones 
I sold more than I could grow, for $2 and $2.50, in- 
cluding planting and warranting to live ; if they did 
not live I replaced, or no pay ! It was at that time 1 
began to hear that often silly expression : "It won't 
pay to warrant trees to live." I have done it for 25 
years or more and it has always paid me handsomely. 
And yet I had to compete with parties who sold as 
good looking trees as mine for 75 cents and $1 when I 
asked $2 and over. I transplanted our trees every 
other year when not every year. I followed the same 
practice for dwarf pear trees, then so popular. I think 
I have said somewhere that I had no faculty for learn- 
ing arithmetic, yet I have always understood that the 
straight line was the shortest in geometry as in com- 
mercial transactions. 

The above digressions have made me forget our 
propagations, which were going " crescendo " in both 



so Autobiography and 

lines. Then horticulture was progressing forward — 
not backward as I have seen in many instances on the 
fallacious pretext that it " did not pay." Then you 
could sell New Holland and Cape of Good Hope plants, 
etc., that nobody wants to-day. T think I shall do well 
not to follow the thread of my digressions on that sub- 
ject when the " Chrysanthomania " is at the apogee of 
its paroxysm. Fifty years ago the camellia swayed ! 
the horticultural world as the chrysanthemum does to- 
day. Everything has to undergo the vicissitudes of 
life, *' Hodie mihi, eras tibi," to-day to me to-morrow 
to you. Among the various epidemics on plants we 
have had in succession are the " Morus multicaulis," 
" Chinese Yam " (Dioscorea), Fuchsia, Coleus, Pelar- 
gonium zonale and P. inguinans, vulgo geranium 
(horse shoe — geraniums), which by the way sire not 
geraniums, notwithstanding the popularity of the 
name adapted by the whole community. "We must 
confess that nothing has equalled the rose ! which has 
survived and thrown into oblivion all her contempora- 
ries. Hoses were in demand 50, 60, 100 years ago. 
Not so much as to-day, however. Now they seem to 
be as necessary as bread itself ! I wonder if they shall 
ever have their decadence? Do not be afraid. I only 
ask the question. It is not probable that the rose will 

ever be supplanted by any other flower — unless 

God knows! we don't! One thing I know just this 



Eecollections, 1847-54. 31 

moment. It is that I am sketching mj life ! ? I 
hope it will be considered so ! But I can not refrain 
from making digressions — right or wrong. 

Well, I can not stop here, I must continue my 
wandering reflections. I think we are about the year 
1850 or 1852 ; really I forget, but one year more or 
less will not make me one day older, even if I commit 
some anachronism, as long as what I relate is correct, 
and I earnestly mean to do so, or my quotation about 
straight and " short line " would be a fiction, a blunder, 
a falsehood. On second thought I think that what I 
am to tell happened in 1852 (but I am not certain and 
I have no documents to confirm my doubts), an attempt 
to revive the New York Horticultural Society, which 
had been founded several years before, (from what I 
had learned from Dr. Torrey, who certainly told me 
the year, but after more than half a century I forget) 
by having an exhibition. Messrs. Hogg, florists at 
Yorkville, hinted to me something about it and said, 
" when we have it we expect your presence, you can 
be represented. "We understand you have materials 
for." I replied jocosely, " I shall not do such things. 
1 would be afraid of distancing you in the contest and 
that might check the growth of our friendship." Time 
passed away and I had forgotten the incident, when 
one day I received a formal invitation to attend the 



32 Autobiography and 

exhibition. I did not intend to do it, but when the 
day came, my wife — No! my Phanerogyne — this 
name suits me ; it is more sympathetic, more euphonic 
to me. Because it is Greek and of your own coining, 
you will say. No ! it is not that ; mother and father 
are not entirely Greek and yet 1 somewhat like these 
expressions better than the equivalents of my maternal 
tongue, mere and pere. It seems to me there is more 
sentiment in the English my mother ! my father ! are 
so full of euphony, of fluidity from the heart ! I hope 
you will absolve me once more for that overstretched 
parenthesis. It was necessary to let you know my 
feelings! My Phanerogyne I was saying, was with 
me when Messrs. Hogg hinted to me the possibility of 
an exhibition and heard my jocose answer. She asked 
me are you not going to that exhibition ? I answered 
no, I have too much to do, besides I have nothing in 
bloom, and no foliage plants — as to-day, no palms. 
'* Well," said she, " if you do not go they will say that 
you are a vain boaster, with your fears of distancing 
them, etc. You ought to go. If it is only for my sake, 
do go !" I answered, " well I will, but without 
plants." " But it is precisely the plants which must 
go. They can do without you, but they want to see 
your plants." "Well, to please you I will try." So 
I went to look over my stock, which was not quite so 
large as that of Messrs. Pitcher & Manda to-day. I 



Recollections, 1855-61. 33 

had only several Ixora coccinea in bloom and one Eu- 
phorbia splendens. I forget what were the other 
plants. I wanted six. I took twolxoras — if not three. 
At that time I had never seen an exhibition, but I was 
reading the Gardeners^ Chronicle and I knew the 
theory of the arrangements for exhibitions, and my two 
or three Ixoras forbade me of being disqualified from 
competition. I knew that the plants were to be dis- 
similar. However, I took the first prize for 6 plants — 
the prize of honor — notwithstanding the duplicate 
ixoras, but they were fine and had never been seen in 
New York. So I at once became a hero ! Not one of 
Homer's heroes, though I drank water with my wine as 
they did ; that was my only affinity with them. 

That exhibition was, according to what I heard at 
the time, the most remunerative, they ever had in New 
York ; but the receiver or treasurer forgot to give up 
the money received and ran away. And that '^ Dutch- 
man from Albany," as I heard some people designat- 
ing me, came back home covered vfiih. platonic laurels t 

But then, I could /iz^ myself with I won't tell. 

If you are sagacious, as I suppose you are, you may 
guess at it. 

As a bisextile year I am going to leap over to Feb- 
ruary 14, 1854, to receive a communication from a 
committee of gentlemen, lovers of horticulture, of 



34: Autobiography and 

Brooklyn, asking me to let them have a copy of the 
by-laws of onr horticultural society of Albany, and 
soliciting also my co-operation toward organizing or 
reviving their horticultural society. The New York 
Horticultural Society was then in a state of catalepsy^ 
that with time became a chronic disease, with intermis- 
sions of a quasi life, just enough to show it was not dead. 
I with enthusiasm sent them the documents wanted and 
the promise of my co-operation as far as I could, and as 
I was wont to, I made the remark that I wished them 
success, that they had materials for but that they must 
try to control the " element-gardener " and prevent 
them from predominating their position, not let them 

transgress, trespass its limits. I then thought of a fair 
exhibition that took place in 1840, in Brooklyn, which 
never had an echo until May, 1854. From that year 
until 1861 all the exhibitions — two or three every 
year — were successful, partly thanks to the president, 
Mr. Degraw, a very liberal man, ready to put his hand 
in his pocket when the funds were short. It was at 
those exhibitions in Brooklyn that were seen the hand- 
somest specimens of New Holland and Cape of Good 
Hope plants ever exhibited in America, besides many 
other plants such as Ixoras coccinea, javanica, Colei 
(white), etc., etc. I do not remember all, except some 
fine plants, much appreciated then, that would make 
people laugh to-day, not because they were inferior, 



Kecollections, 1855-61. 35 

but because tbey were old ! As far as I can remember 
I attended most, if not all, of those exhibitions from 
1854 to 1861, when the secession war put an end to 
the society's life. It expired in the Academy of Music 
of Brooklyn. I have said that the breaking out of the 
war put an end to it; but even if it had not, there 
would have been a catastrophe. The '^element" 
alluded to had transgressed, trespassed over the limits 
of sound judgment. First by passing a resolution that 
" foreign exhibitors " should not have the freight of 
their exhibits paid, even if the freight should cost more 
than all the prize money they might receive. Now, do 
you understand who were those foreign exhibitors? 
You do not ! Well, those foreign intruders were your 
correspondent, the "sketcher" of the above bitter- 
sweet digressions, etc. Secundo : that fifth element 
had decided suh-rosa not to award any first premiums 
to that Albany intruder who durst accept money to 
pay his freight, a mere trifle of $35 or $45 or more at 
every exhibitiou. One point to their credit, they did 
not deny me the right to vote at the presidential elec- 
tion. You may possibly wish to know who gave me 
such information. Simply the president of the society 
and its other officers, who had warned me not to mind 
the " elements quaking," that every thing should remain 
in the " statu quo " as before. 



36 AUTOBIOGEAPHY AND 

From that time the community at large seemed more 
inclined to win laurels than to cultivate them and I 
think they were right in that occurrence. The abolition 
of slavery was more glorious than all the exhibitions put 
together. " That Holy War ! " '' Oette Guerre Sainte " 
" Hoc Bellum Sanctum ! " which has elevated the 
supremacy of the Anglo-American race, Americano- 
Yankee progeny ! ' ' This last appellation suits me bet- 
ter ; in it I feel the pulsation of the shaking of the hand 
of our Uncle Sam ! sez he ! ! The supremacy of that 
sublime monotype nation ! I say monotype emphatically 
— for which other nation on the whole surface of the 
globe after the victory of the federal armies over the 
old prejudices would have used such clemency, behaved 
so generously with the vanquished ? ? ? None ! Unless 
that magnanimous? Russia that would have done 
something that Yankees ! would not have done, to- 
wit: hang half of the vanquished and send the other in 
Siberia for life 

That war which has elevated the supremacy, the 
glory of the grandest Republic in the world to the 
highest altitude ; exalted the bravery of that improvised 
army ! ! that many pygmies ! mentally speaking, said 
was fond of playing '' soldiers ^ Indeed I they were 
fond of playing, so fond of it that in 1865 our Uncle 
Sam ! to make them give up the idea of continuing 



Kecollections, 1855-61. 37 

the play with, that ^^ Scoundrel Illy Thlrd,''^ had to 
intimate to the French army in Mexico to evacuate that 
country, that the soil the spot was too hot for their 
comfort, and that the sooner they would leave the better. 
He (our uncle) was not obliged to re-intimate the hint; 
it was readily understood, as by intuitio7i and complied 
with double quick alacrity 

My commentaries on the resolutions of the ^^ fifth 

element " and on the war, have distracted me 

from my subject — the Exhibition. I do not remember 
well, but I think it was inferior to previous ones. The 
most attractive, strikingly so, was a lot of Coleus Ver- 
schafiettii, exhibited for the first time^ by Mr. — I do 
not know the initials — Townsend of Brooklyn. The 
plants were well grown ! and their brilliancy was daz- 
zling, at least they produced that effect on me. As 
I drew near them I took off my hat out of admiration 
and sighed deeply with eager desire to get some of them, 
or at least some cuttings. I did not know the owner or 
else I would have introduced myself to him as a " pro- 
fessor of cutting " and ready to give him a demonstra- 
tion of my skill in vegetable anatomy , but he was not 
in the Hall and I never saw hhn. And yet I got the 
cuttings on the same day ! How ? you will know soon. 
Having seen all I wanted to see I left the Exhibition 
room, I mean the Academy of Music, that I had seen 



38 Autobiography and 

for the first time and the last. Then I went to New 
York, to see the. secretary of our Horticultural Society 
to get some information. I was hardly in his office 
when I saw a branch of our Coleus ! before I saw him, 
standing in a glass of water on his desk. I went to 
the desk took the glass in my hand and presenting it to 
him I asked him where he took it, or hoohed it perhaps I 
forget. He answered me that I was very prompt in judg- 
ing others with my own feelings but he said: I sup- 
pose that you would not dislike a portion of it even if 
stolen ? I answered in the affirmative, he toot the branch 
and cut me one or two joints ! Now, do you realize 
how I felt when I held a section of that coveted plant 
in my hand ? I confess that I forgot for a moment my 
disappointment of that trinity of deceptions that 
weighed on my heart when I left Brooklyn. The 
transgressions of the " element " in having passed that 
resolution on Foreign exhibitors the determination not 
to award me any first premium, deserved or not, and 
not expecting to get my Coleus cuttings, that I got with- 
out cutting my fingers ! That Coleus was one of the 
best weed that I ever had. A weed I Will you say ? 
Well, this qualifying adjective is not my own coining, 
it belongs to our old friend Mr. Wm. Grey of Albany 
who described it " a fine ornamental nettle " (Urtica 
urens) a had weed in Europe, any how ! I have felt 
its malignity on some part of my individual 



Kecollections, 1855-61. 39 

long hefore I studied Crjptogamj. At the time I got 
it, it proved to be one of the best " root of all evils " 
this '^root planV^ suggests me more of this same 
quality, but more weedy "a variegated weed^^ as 
would say our friend above. It is "^gopodium 
podarasia" goutwort, in English, a plant growing 
2,^ freely every lohere as quack or couch-grass (Triticum 
repens), it is eminently a root of all evils but it pro- 
duces both abundance of roots and some money, which 
to my knowledge " pays better " than Coleus to-day and 
gives less trouble, but I think I have said enough if not 
too much, so I shut the valve .... and what next ? I 
hardly know, for I have been led astray, wandering 
hither and thither without I might say having the 
conscience of what I was about. I have when on the 
ground of the Brooklyn Hort. Society forgotten a few 
incidents, that probably I shall never have occasion to 
relate unless I do it now. That year 1854, was an event- 
ful remarkable year. First, it was the advent or re- 
viving — of the Brooklyn Hort. Soc'y, which Society 
shined for seven years, except a very few cloudy days. 
It was the First year we saw a travelling agent from 
a European Horticultural establishment on this Con- 
tinent, at least to my knowledge. It was the year of 
the Crimean War and not a Holy war but the reverse, 
I say not Holy, perhaps because it somewhat hurt my 
purse, a sensitive thing with every body. It was the 



40 Autobiography and 

first year I began to import plants (directly) from 
Messrs. Low of the Clapton Nurseriers, the founder of 
the establishment, his son, who died lately, was the 
same man who came hither in 1854 and who came to 
see me here in Albany, with Mr. Edgard Sander, now 
a resident of Chicago, this Mr. Low who, when he 
saw me at 15 or 18 yards distant, hallooed me : Are 
you Mr. Menand? Yes, I answered, w^hen he said 
again : Mr. Menand ! the fellow who sold in Brooklyn 
last May an Ixora coccinea, £4, four pounds, $20. 
When he spoke these words we shook hands. Well, 
by God! or something equivalent, you are a lucky 
fellow or man to sell a plant $20 ! We would be glad 
to sell all our stock Ixora for that amount. I would like 
to see those /bw/* pound plants. We were within 3 or 4 
yards of them, they were in hot bed frames behind us. 
I opened the sashes and showed them to him. I had 
perhaps 6 or 8 dozen of different sizes when he turned 
round and said : If our plants were as good as these 
we would not sell the stocJc for 4: pounds. I answered 
him that I believed him, and we continued to talk of 
something else — of giving him an order for some 
plants, this was the main object of his visit. Then we 
began to argue about the identity of an Eriea^ he gave 
it a name different from the one I had. He said my 
name was incorrect. Then I told him you have cheated 
me for it comes from your establishment. He said 



Recollections, 1855-61. 41 

it did not. I said again it did. I found after that 
lie was right, but what makes me mention that cir- 
cumstance it is not the name, but the fact that that 
plant was dead^ and none of us noticed it, and yet 
Mr. Low was a competent judge in that matter. 
When he and his friend left me I went with them 
to Albany, always thinking of my plant (Ericas at 
that time were my hobby), that it had a green look- 
ing appearance but could not realize that it was dead. 
As soon as I got home I went to see it with a candle 
— it was night but could not see any indication of its 
being dead no more than four or five hours before. 
As soon as day light came I went again, then I did 
not want spectacles to see it was gone ad paires — 
gone to heaven — dead. Since that I have seen many 
such examples. I once sold one that I knew was 
dead, but the man had selected it among a few of 
the same kind. That man was a gardener. I sent 
him that plant with another alive. He got them 
the same day I sent them, and the day following he 
wrote me I had made a mistake, that he wanted only 
one. He soon found out he was mistaken not I. 
Once I sold a Cereus senilis in the same circumstance 
and the party who got them told me the dead one was 
the best looking of the two . That man was our friend 
Mr. Wm. Grey ! ! So this long spun story shows you 
that gardeners are as infallible as the Pope that is to 



42 AUTOBIOGEAPHY AND 

say know as much as he does, this I call " Eguality in 
face of the Reason, 

!N'ow that I am stuck in the ruts of prolixity let me 
continue a little longer about the events that took place 
in the year 185Jt.. A. few days after Mr. Low was gone 
as I had promised him I sent him an order mostly 
Ericas and a few other plants ; the whole not to ex- 
exceed %10 or 175. In Sept. or October I received a 
box containing the plants ordered, at least I think so, 
but / guessed ! When I had opened the box I found 
that ih.Q plants^ thQpots they were in, the soil, the whole 
was like if having been ground by a mill stone. So 
that one could have snuffed the whole like snuff 
(tobacco) and strange I saved two plants, one Funkia 
grandiflora that proved to be Funkia alba a plant I 
had in quantity, and one Genista prostrata, a British 
plant; one was worth 6 pence British, the other one 
shilling that is all I had for $70 or $75 and six or seven 
dollars for freight was not that coining ! ! I wrote 
Messrs. Low and told them the condition of the plant 
and added if yow feel as \do when spring comes send 
me again the same lot as you had and charge me only 
half the price agreed ; they did and when the plants 
came I had about for 6 or 8 dollars worth alive. They 
gave me the particulars of the shipping in Liverpool. 
All available (steamers) had been chartered by the 



Kecollections, 1855-61. 43 

government to send ammunition, troops and all kinds 
of supplies to Sebastapol ; that thej only found a small 
steamer overloaded that would take my box and to have 
it stowed near the engine-room that which accounts for 
the snuff I got and that which also explains you my 
''purse hurV by the Crimean War. Now, will all 
this long rigmarole story or stories pay you for the 
candles you will burn for reading them, if you say yes ! 
I will be satisHed^ but I have not done with the transac- 
tion, although I did not give it up, for, from that time I 
began to import from France, Belgium, England ; I had 
awful bad luck, still I persisted. Some plants I imported 
three times before I could get one alive ; of Latania 
rubra, Phoenicophorium Scchellarum, Pandamus re- 
flexus, I think I spent $100 before I could get any alive. 
Pandamus reflexus was the worst but when I had it I did 
well with it, because I could propagate it, but the Palms 
I could not, so when I sold them I had to ask a large 
price what made some of my friends of the element say : 
that I charged awful prices ; it may have been so, but if 
to day I had nothing to live but what I realized on those 
plants I could not have one meal qyqvj day. I could not 
very well tell how I have made what we have, nothing 
in particular ; but on many I always kept a little of every 
thing in the line of horticulture, so I could supply al- 
most any thing wanted during the Secession "War. It 
was the Golden Age in every way making money, 



44: Autobiography and 

and emancipating one portion of human kind / / .... 
when came the "Genesis" of greenbacks that some 
wiseacres predicted would be good for nothing. 
Many believed it. At that time I had to pay a 
man $2,000 ; I did ])ay with those green, gems, he 
took some in his fingers and waging them he said : 
They are not good for that — designing a fillip with 
his thumb — but I must take them as if they were 
gold. At that time a man of Chicago came one day 
here in our residence and asked me with a very few 
words of introduction : Are you Mr. Menand ? I 

answered him I was. Well, he said, I am Mr. • 

Thompson, the man who wrote you lately to get a col- 
lection of Azaleas. Have you not received my letter ? 
Yes, sir, I have and here are the plants and the boxes 
ready to pack them, but I would not send them with- 
out letting you know the price of them and a short de- 
scription of the dimensions of the plants. I have writ- 
ten you to that effect. O ! he exclaimed, it was of no 
use. I knew your plants. I had seen them before at the 
Brooklyn Exhibition. It is all right but do not send 
them until I come back from New York, whither I am 
going to buy some plants for that ! and he showed 
1 1,000 green-horns, if you please, for they were 2^ new- 
horns. Then I told him in assuming a hecoming at- 
titude Well, Sir ! you are just the man I wanted to see, 
and these 1,000 dollars will suit me better than a 



Recollections, 1862-65. 45 

pair of kid gloves on my hands. O ! but I am not 
going to give you all that ; I wish to keep some 
for what I may buy in New York. Well before I 
go to New York I want to see what you have, in 
order that I should not buy inferior plants. Well, sir, 
we will show yon the whole of our '•' elephant " that I 
have trained since I was able to understand that three 
are not a unit no more than 2 and 2 make three, but 
four 4. I will show you all we have, because when 
you come back from the Imperial City you will buy 
more, so as to let me have those 1,000 pictures to 
adorn my office or bed room, where I brew my horti- 
cultural notions and others .... He passed the remark 
how do you know that I will buy more? I know it, 
if you speak earnestly that you want so and so — be- 
cause you will not find them there better than I have 
and no cheaper. I do not care about cheaper I want 
the best f All right, sii', we agree ; it is understood 
you come again — of course I must, to give you some 
instructions about shipping, etc. Yes ! and buy more 
plants to absorb the balance of these $1,000 that I am 
so eager to add to the list of my new plants .... He 
did come and gave me upward of 900 dollars and be- 
sides an order for some officinal plants, such as Laurus 
camphora, Caryophyllus aromaticus, etc., but he never 
had them. I heard that not long after our transaction 
he gave up the plants or the green pictures left him — 



46 Autobiography and 

divorced from him. Is not the quotation " Hodie to 
me, Cras tibi " true ? To-day to me, to-morrow to me. 
Some time after that, another citizen of Chicago 
came to see me on a certain Sunday morning and asked 
me if I allowed people visiting our establishment on 
Sabbath Day ? I told him I did, and to convince him 
of my sincerity I told him 

"If you have never done any more harm 
Than to visit a friend, a garden, or a farm, 
On a Sunday, or any other holy day, 
You are sure to go to heaven straightaway." 

It was early in the morning I was going to breakfast and 
offered him to come with me. He said he had had his 
breakfast at his Hotel in Albany (Delavan House) 
where he had to stay until 10 or 11 o'clock at night to 
go to Chicago, and it was for that reason he l:)rohe the 
Sabhath, and that he wanted to have something to do 
to Mil the time. On this ^' deliberate utterance " I 
made him the observation that he was an awful man 
to 'breah the days and hill the time. Well, he said, 
in talking, in doing so I do not think I do any more 
harm than many who pray the whole day. I am a 
sort of an Artist, I do admire nature and if you will as 
you said, allow me to stay looking round the whole day, 
I will be much obliged, for I see that you have enough 
to see to keep me busy until dark. Please go to break- 



Recollection Sj 1862-65. 47 

fast. I will walk through your ground and greenhouses 
and I shall not break any thing nor kill any body. 
Well, sir, do as you please, I shall not be long. In 
fact I was not long when one has a temper as mine 
and he meets such an Artistio philosopher he does not 
miss the opportunity to take lessons of '* wisdom " that 
pay better than praying the " Supreme being" to have 
rain when it is dry or dry when it rains too much. 
Praying God to change the laws of nature ! ! as well as 
to say " he made a mistake'''^ when he made them! ! ! 
.... I say p>ray God with your heart and not with 
your lips only. He remained the whole day. I had 
some visitors who evidently had been brought up to the 
same school as the artist and your pseudo-sJcetcher. 
Certain we had what you call often platonically a 
good time, but we had it practically so, abstraction 
made, that we had hardly any thing to eat. 

On Saturday, the day before, we had got short of 
bread and we forgot to get some, so on Sunday morn- 
ing I went in Albany to get some at the Baker or 
rather the " Bahress ! ! " She would not sell me any, 
but she began to give me some blessings in verha 
canina. I dare not to tell you in English all the flow 
of her rhetoric, for I was far off that she was still de- 
claiming, when our horses got afraid of the noise, 
started, not expecting any oats from such unhospitable 



48 AUTOBIOGKAPUY AND 

inn. Nevertheless we enjoyed. We had some crackers 
and cheese and wine and " Tom and Jerry " ad libitum^ 
for when we had all our crackers eaten we ate or 
rather we cracked jokes.. It was not so indigestible, 
besides we made up in fluid what we were short of in 
food. After dark we broke the meeting and parted. 
Our artist left me some specimens of his art in the 
shape of 200 dollars. I have always been sorry since 
not to have seen him again, and 

" If lie is dead, I hope lie is gone to heaven Artistically 
As I hope when I die to go thither horticulturally," 

There is pleasure in meeting genial men with whom 
you can exchange your ideas without bruising any one's 
feelings, like our shrew ! above liad done to me about 
bread. 

Here a Retrospective thought strikes my mind that 
somewhere in my lucubrations I have spoken of Crypto- 
gamy and Cryptogamic studies, but that I have not 
given the definitions of my ideas in reference to their 
double meaning. Cryptogamia ! indeed ! they were {Hid- 
den). I have meant to say that by Cryptogamic studies 
I wanted to study plants deprived of sexual organs, 
not visible to the naked eye ; and also the study of the 
*' human heartP Study a thousand times more diffi- 
cult than to study and analyze the most microscopic, 
impalpable, embryonic " Mucidinse " (Meldew family) 



Recollections, 1862-66. ■ 49 

for there are 75 years I began to try that or those 
studies, and so far, to-day, I hardly know a few letters 
of its alphabet (of the later, human heart). 

As I am narrating retrospective anecdotes, I may as 
well continue, inasmuch as they all have some relation 
to horticultural incidents, or to the horticulturist him- 
self. 

At one of the Brooklyn horticultural exhibitions I 
had some Ericas (Heaths). A gentleman of New 
York, then the king of sugar dealers (I admit kings in 
commercial affairs and intellectual notions; beyond that 
none)^ saw them and inquired for me, to know if they 
were for sale. I was out of the city that day, as I al- 
most always did, when the judges awarded the premi- 
ums ; not finding me he went for the president of the 
society, and asked him if those " Scotch Heaths " were 
for sale. He answered him he thought that 1 might 
be in want of the amount of their value in money, but 
that I might also prefer to keep them ! Well, he said, 
I understand that, but tell him that I want them and I 
will pay what he will ask me. At the close of the ex- 
hibition I took them to him ; the moment he saw me 
he took my hand with both of his, and very sympa- 
thetically said, you must be a Scotchman, to grow such 
plants — "Scotch Heaths." I told him they were no 
more Scotch heaths than 1 was a Scotchman. Well, 
5 



50 Autobiography and 

he saidj it does not matter, they suit me and will take 
the whole of them. How much do you want and what 
money, gold or bank bills ? As you please. He paid me 
in gold. Then asked me if I had any children ? Yes, 
sir ; I have a fair collection of both sexes, and in pairs ; 
four boys and four girls. Do you want to buy some 
(he had none) ? They are not for sale. Ko, he said ; 
/ ha'oe heen wishing some but I did not want to huy 
them. The reason I ask you is, that children are as 
fond of candies as we are fond of Heaths. So he 
called one of the young ladies attending the retail 
store to give me three or four pounds of the best can- 
dies. Then he shook my hand, telling me, Mr. Menand, 
when you get some more of such plants as you have 
brought me I will take them. I have never sent him 
any, but the same year or maybe the year after, he and 
his wife came to Albany to see the State Fair. It was 
very warm and he could not find anything fit for him 
to drink on the Fair ground, when he remembered that 
I was living on the Troy and Albany road, he inquired 
and he found that I lived close by, so they came. He 
no sooner saw me that he said, " we are perishing for 
want of a drink ; can't you give us some, a Frenchman 
must have claret ; have you not got any ? Yes, I have ; 
but it is not Scotch Wine ! He laughed and said, no 
matter, it will do ; so I took them in the house and 
went for a bottle of Burgundy or Bordeaux wine, I for- 



Eecollections, 1862-65. 51 

get, he took the bottle and filled up a quart of his 
glass and degusted it — " en connoisseur," and told me 
it is very good, but mine I have home is better ! it is 
older ! I felt like telling him, as I heard once a French 
priest telling a man who had brought hime some fowls 
from a friend. He, the priest, had given that man a 
bottle of wine and something to eat, as it is the custom 
in the country. When he had taken a glass or two of 
that wine, the priest asked him, how do you like my 
wine ? The fellow seemed to me as if he knew some- 
thing about wine, or at least he had pretensions. He 
said, " Monsieur Le Cure," it is very good, but if it 
was one year older, it would be much letter ; it was 
good wine, but the fellow wanted to show his knowl- 
edge of wines, but the priest got so much vexed of that 
man's impudence that he took the bottle, corked it 
again, and said to that churl, holding the bottle under 
his nose, you will come next year, it shall he better — 
now ! go home. I did not do like the priest, but I told 
him the story ; he and his wife laughed heartily. That 
man and his wife were well-bred people, and when he told 
me his wine was better, because he had paid $30 j)er 
case, and mine only cost me about fifty cents a bottle. I 
bought mine by the cask of sixty gallons ; then I asked 
him if he found his wine $2 a bottle better than mine ; 
his wife said our's is not fifty cents better, the differ- 
ence was in the social standing of that gentleman, he 



62 Autobiography and 

was a millionaire, and I was wise for want of inoney . . , 
He told me, I suppose that wine and you come from 
the same locality. Yes, sir ! and I am trying to im- 
prove myself by old age as wine does. It is an old 
proverb, or aphorism of our ancestors, the " Gaulois " 
that 

" Good old wine and young women 
Give you tlie illusion of going to Heaven." 

Now that I have told you more or less edifying 
stories — no ! stories but histories (authentic) I may have 
committed some chronological errors or expressed my- 
self with too much enthusiasm, but all I have said is 
truer than what is often termed " Sacred History." 

Just this moment I think of the history of a plant 
of great intrinsic value, as far as mere money is con- 
cerned, but also for the gratification it gives, by its 
frequency in blooming several times through the whole 
year. Summer and Winter. 

This plant is Yanda tricolor variety and tricolor 
" Corningina " dedicated by his friends to Mr. Erastus 
Corning, President of " Albany Orchid Club " Orchid 
Club ! I have never heard of such an Association \ 
It may be so, nevertheless it has existed and gloriously 
for many years and some of its members are still alive 
and ready to vindicate and praise its doings, collectively y 



Eecollections, 1865-70. 53 

not individually^ it is not here the place to scrutinize 
the private life of any body. We leave that to the 
^* Judge of the Supreme Court above our heads ! " 
.... We probably shall have occasion to make digres- 
sion on that Club and the Clubbists — so let us return 
to our Yanda. Here I am somewhat at a loss how to 
begin the biography of our plant and not malce too 
many errors in delineating the character of the in- 
cidents connected with it. I will try to do my best ; 
the subject is worthy of attention. As far as I can 
recollect I imported the plant before the Secession War, 
for there was no duty on plants at that time. It was 
imported sometime between 1857 or 1859 about. It 
was a small plant 3 or 4 leaves for which I had paid 
$15 or $20. I had it perhaps two years, when Mr. E. 
Corning (a great lover of plants and flowers, since I 
knew him (1843) he was a boy then, and I had seen 
more than one-third of my career) came with two genial 
friends evidently ^ at first sight, after a good dinner ! 
and of course with the usual irrigations of liquid in 
such circumstances. He jumped out of his carriage 
and came to me with a florid, lively countenance and 
told me how are you Mr. Men and, and how are the 
new plants doing ? and pointing out a small greenhouse 
against our dwelling house said : You always keep 
some good things in that hole ! It was and is stiU a 
small place hardly high enough for a man with a stove 



64: AUTOBIO&KAPHY AND 

pipe hat. Can I go in ? yes you can ; he Was hardly 
in when he noticed our Yanda, though he did not know 
then a Yanda from a Dendrobium. Is not that an Or- 
chid ? I told him it was. Have we got it ? I do not know; 
you ought to. No! but you know better than I do 
what we have, for we get almost every thing from you; 
how much is it worth ? I did not believe he wanted to 
buy any thing any more than I wanted to drown my- 
self, so I told him I suppose that to-day you could buy 
one in London for about what I paid, $15 or 20. Well, 
he said I will take it ; very well ! but I do not want to 
sell it. I have only this one ; I keep it. By J . . . . or 
some other expression, I ask you how much it is worth; 
I give you the maximum price, $20, and you say you 
do not want to let me have it. It is mine ; so saying 
he put his hand in his vest pocket to pay me, but he 
had no money. When I saw him in that mood I thought 
it was no use arguing, and I told him you will pay me 
with a few other items you owe me. No ! I want to 
pay it right away, so he called one of his two friends 
and said J. B. C. lend me $20. What ! he answered, 
you must have a good reputation for solvability if you 
cannot be trusted for such an amount. He will trust 
me, but I see that if I do not pay him he will not send 
me the plant ; he was right ; when I found he had no 
money I made up my mind at once that I would not 
send the plant, thinking after he would be gone he 



Recollections, 1865-70. 55 

would forget it, but he insisted to pay ; he read in my 
face as I read in his mind, but he had the advantage 
over me, so he asked his friend again for $20 ; the 
friend told him from outside, for he was out and we 
were inside : Erastus ! you know me well enough ; I 
never lend money to any body without knowing what 
use he is going to do with the money. By .... I have 
told you already to pay for that plant. What plant — > 
I want to see it ; he walked in, looked at the plant for 
one second and went out backward, so that he knocked 
his head against the top of the door, turned round, 
picked up his hat, took his cigar out of his mouth and 
assuming a theatrical attitude, as an actor acting the 
part of Hamlet when going to recite the monologue : 
To be or not to be ! and said by ....!! 25 dollars for 
a plant ! ! do you know that with $25 we could, the three 
of us, get completely .... intoxicated with Lord Byron's 
Intoxicatio7i (in a measure). As Lord Byron's intoxi- 
cation is, " par excellence," the triplicate effusion of 
the heart, of the soul, and of the most sensitive part of 
the human intellect ! A Trinity of thing celestial, an 
union of bliss ! " E plurihus unum spiritual ! ! " 

After that tirade I was going to tell him, you are 
right enough and you cannot improve your condition ; 
but I kept my tongue and I began to reconsider my 
visitors. The senior of the trio had been, during all 



56 Autobiography and 

the time of our transaction, walking to and from, but 
always keeping at a distance from us. He was a very 
eminent man, by liis individuality, being connected 
with the Hudson River E. R. and N". Y. Central R. 
Road, and besides a member of congress ; so he had to 
take care of himself, and he did. It was plain to me 
that his two young copartners tried to get him out of 
his centre of gravity ! but so far had failed ; for I 
have never known how they reached Albany, but I had 
good reasons to think when they got in the city our dis- 
ciple of Aristotle did not continue his exercise of peri- 
patetic in walking in the streets of Albany, as the fol- 
lowers of Aristotle did, in the Lyceum ot Athens. I 
learned the day after that Mr. Corning had been to his 
farm at Kenwood to see Mr. Grey, his gardener, and 
let him know that he had stuck the Frenchman in buy- 
ing a plant that he would not sell, etc. When our 
friend Grey came, after he had shaken my hand, he 
asked me if it was true, that I had sold my unique 
Yanda to Mr. Corning, for $20 or $25 ; for I am not 
sure. I have said somewhere that I could never learn 
arithmetic, and it would be no wonder if I have con- 
founded three or four for four and five. Grey told me, 
you must have been out of your mind or drunk 
when you made such a silly bargain, for a few 
months before I had offered you $40 for it, and as much 
for an JErides crispa majus, and you would not sell 



Eecollections, 1865-70. 67 

them to me. Now, said Grey, so that you cannot re- 
pair the bkinder you have done, send us that JErides 
for $40, and $20 you have had for the Yanda, will 
make your loss lighter. Mr. Corning has told me, as 
soon as that plant produces an offset we will give it to 
you. And, mind ; nobody at that time knew what it 
would be until it bloom. Now, if I was asked how 
long it was before it bloom, I could not tell to save my 
life. From the time the plant left me until 1880^ all 
is confusion in my mind. All I know is what our 
friend Grey has told me, that they gave me a plant ; 
but when, I can't tell. But it must be, because in 
1873 I sold a plant to Mr. E. S. Rand, who is now at 
Para, Brazil, but who lived in Boston then ; and I sold 
that plant without hnowing it was Yanda Corn- 
ingiana ! ! You sold a plant without hnowing what 
it was? Yes! Well, it is carrying the jokes a little 
too far. It seems so ; I admit it. It will be a little 
lengthy to explain, but I cannot avoid explanation, or 
else everybody would call me an idiot, if nothing else. 
In 1878 Mr. Rand bought a Yanda suaris. He picked, 
selected it himself, among a few plants. I had the 
plant in the shed to be packed, with all the other ones 
he had selected, orchids and other plants, when my 
wife came and looked at them, especially to the Yanda 
he had selected, and told me, you are not going to send 
that to Mr. Rand ? It is a mean looking plant. It 



58 AUTOBIOGKAPHY AND 

was not had^ but when compared with the other Yandas 
I had, it did not look well. Why do you not give him 
one of those good looking ? I would. I have offered 
him one, but he would not have it ; they are Y. tri- 
color, and he wants Y. suaris Veitohii, which were 
and are all tri-color ! ! in varieties with different ad- 
jectives, as Messrs. Yeitch have demonstrated in their 
admirable ! ! Manual of Orchidaeous Plants. My 
wife said so much about that mean plant to be changed 
for one of the other good looking, that I did it, but I 
felt I was doing wrong^ although it was my conviction 
then, as to-day, that all these Yandas were all tri-color, 
strictly, hotanically speaking. Four years later we 
found that plant to be Y. tri-color Corningiana, and 
not thought much more than the other varieties. We 
had not had time to appreciate it, at least 7, who ought 
to have known as much as anybody else, except Grey, 
and as I have said, I have not begun to appreciate it 
before 1880, as far as I can recollect. When I had a 
splendid plant, perhaps two and one-half or three feet 
high, with three shoots starting at the base of that 
plant, the only one I had / it was in bloom ; when one 
of our neighbors, a newly sjprung orchidophile, who 
had caught the orchid fever to exacerbation, to the par- 
oxism 1 asked me if I would sell it to him. I said that 
I would not sell it until I had separated the young ones ; 
he asked me again how long it would be ; I told him I 



Recollections, 1865-70. 69 

could not say exactly, but as soon as they would break 
root he could have the plant for $100. It was agreed, 
but he was so impatient to get it that two or three 
times a week he was after me to know when I would 
send it to him. A few days later he came again, when 
I just cut two of the three ; then he said, I hope you 
will send it to me to-day. No ! there is one more to 
cut ; in a few days you will have it. He went grum- 
bling that I wanted the money and keep the plant. 
I did not hear him, but my phanerogyne (wife) 
heard him, and when he was gone she told me, you 
have better send it to him; he is like a child. I 
know he is like a child, yet, I can not to keep him 
from crying give that offset which is worth at least $25? 
and more. Well, she said, he is a good fellow, a good 
customer, he always pays you what you ask him; you can 
afford to let him have it as it is, and she used a rather 
— homely expression, but at the same time very ex- 
pressive — incisive. She said, you — " you may give 
him the young calf, you have charged him enough for 
the Gow."^^ You will soon see that I had not charged too 
much for the cow, and to give the calf into the bar- 
gain ; in less than two or three weeks he sold the calf 
for $50 to a Florist in Albany, who, two weeks later 
sold it to Mrs. Morgan of New York, for $100. One 
year later the man who had bought my cow plant, sold 
it by auction in New York for $225, to the same man 



60 Autobiography and 

who had bought the calf^ and he sold it again to the 
same lady, Mrs. Morgan, for $300. In less than one 
year, or two, I don't know exactly, I sold the two calves 

first weaned, to a Drover of Orchids in Troy, for 

$225, and at that price because he was my friend, and 
he is so yet, in 1892 .... I have an idea that some will 
whisper in each other's ear ; that " Albany Dutchman 
must be an awful boaster with his rigmaroles ! I accept 
the expressions, Albany Dutchman and rigmaroles, but 
not boaster. I am not a boaster, unless you understand 
by boaster, a man who tells the truth without meta- 
yhor — circumlocution, then I am a boaster, and proud 
of it. 

" Now you may possibly ask yourself if that over- 
stretched history of a plant will close the dams of my 
overflowing vein ? I would do it at once if I thought 
you were tired of trampling in thickset of obscure, and 
often unmeaning digressious. . . . but my vanity 
prompts me to go on, for I have not yet exhausted my 
stock. After this, another. 

Don't you say in English, " the more the merrier \ " 
Well then, you can not complain if I understand a lit- 
tle of the genius of your mother tongue, and try to 
apply it, that is my way of learning abstruse philoso- 
phy, and the English into the bargain. Some day 
when I have leisure, and if I do not slijp off from that 



Eecollections, 1865-70. 61 

slippery, steep slope we call life^ I will ask you some 
questions of English language that 1 have not been able 
to learn to my satisfaction, in half a century. For the 
present I will make some reflexions on what I can say 
that will relieve ^''our ^^ Ennui " to hear always the same 
song. "What could I say that would keep you awake ? 

I think I have spoken of our Orchid Club and its 
members, how would you like a diagnostic of the 
clubbists ? If they were not the best of men, they were 
not either the worst, they were so, so, Golleciively as 
I have hinted before, they were all gentlemen, although 
of different types, as regards tastes, of moral and mate- 
rial things, and as I have told you and tell you again. 
We — I ought to say to be polite. They were all good 
meuy and I was trying to be so also. I must tell you 
between ourselves. They all had the tools to behave 
gentlemanly, though the tools do not always do good 
work, they often "kind o' fails if used improperly, in 
the wrong way, you may try any way, but mus' n't 
take the wrong one, " sez he," or else .... They had 
different tastes in the line of Orchids, for instance : 
Our President, Mr. Corning, said he liked better Odon- 
toglossum Crispum, etc. Mr. Dinsmore, not having 
the same optical faculties, preferred Gattleya\ an- 
other inclined to Vanda ccerulea, Yanda Corningiana, 
Angraeum citratum, etc. Another said he liked 



62 Autobiography and 

Orchids, but would rather have Champagne I ! An- 
other liked The Spectabile (he meant : Cypripedium 
speetabile), with Mrs. Menand's Punch, flavored with 
cherry hounce (cherries preserved in brandy). Another 
said he would like to see pretty Orchids, sweet scented^ 
Y&ry fragrant, fasten on the bosom of a pretty young 
woman, and been allowed to smell them on that spot, 
60 you see how tastes differed. I suppose you would 
like to know what I preferred ? prime : I preferred 
my " phanerogyne '' secundo : I like both, the whole 
Cypripedium family, and all the other genera spoken of 
above Odontoglossum Cattleya, etc., etc. . . . I for- 
got I like also good Sauterne Wine, and I do not dis- 
hke Champagne nor any good company, this to my mind 
is preferable to all the others, but both good company 
and good refreshmeftt will complete the festival, 
and make a man happy if he is a Tnan who can con- 
trol his will. And here I must say that during sev- 
eral years we kept together, I never saw one out 
of the way of decency but once. We were almost 
all present at the meeting. We had to welcome a lot 
of New Orchids and other plants arrived from Eng- 
land. Among them was a variegate species of Agave 
that will deserve a special notice that I probably shall do 
if I live long enough. On that remarkable day in the 
history of our Club we irrigated so — much our 710- 
tions that when night came and we had to return to 



Kecollections, 1875-80. 6S 

Albany in two or three carriages waiting for us / no- 
ticed that we were all, I thought — what you call in 
English " half seas over ;/' No ! not quite so, but what 
the French call to be ^* Dans les Yignes du Seigneur " 
literally in English " In the vineyards of the Lord." 
When we left Mr. Coming's place and before we got 
in the carriages I cast a look at the whole company and 
I concluded that not one of our company of Trojans 
of whom I was one of them, were in a condition to 
tbink to give a gratification to the drivers who had 
been waiting for us perhaps an hour or more so. I did 
it although I thought I was not much better than all 
the rest, but you will see when men are men and de- 
termined to be so what they will do. When we arrived 
to Albany we found we had missed the train we wanted 
to go by, so we had to wait one hour. You probably 
suppose that during that one hour we would to kill the 
time, to irrigate ourselves again. Well, we did it, we 
went in a restaurant where I had never been, where we 
drank every one of us a cup of tea, nothing else. Was 
not that heroic ! ! ! This happened 10 or 12 (or more) 
years ago. From that time our meetings became less 
frequent and our enthusiasm followed the same pro- 
gression i. e., went backward. Our last proselyte, 
neophyte, had to give up his collections ; that which 
cooled our energy; for he was a jpowerful stimulant^ 
two strong for his constitution — for his own good, 



64 Autobiography and 

and it somewhat re-acted on us. Yet, after that the 
Orcliid fever did not abate at once. Another amateur 
(not of our locality) stepped on his track for a few 
years then collapsed as any undertaking conducted too 
recklessly will come to sooner or later. 

This digression reminds me that I have not con- 
cluded my description of the different tastes of our 
condubbisis for different kinds of Orchids. I have not 
given entirely the enumeration of what I liked or did 
not. After having said that I liked good company 
above all I ought to have said that I was a sort oipan- 
tophile ("lover of every thing,") with inany exceptions 
such as ill-treatment, hypocrisy, counterfeit money, 
foul language, the smell of rank tobacco, the polemics 
of politicians who are to-day protectionist when they 
have goods for sale at home inferior to foreign goods, 
ox free traders^ when they have to import what they 
have not or cannot produce. I suppose you have a 
*" quantum sufficit " of what I like and do not. !N"ow 
you know a little about our peculiarities. To complete 
your knowledge, I must (notwithstanding my modesty) 
tell you that I was somebody in that association of good 
fellows. I was a sort of a mh-\ionoY2iYj janitor, a connect- - 
ing link between the dissident parties w^hen there were 



(* Quantum sufficit — plenty enough, too mucli.) 



Kecollections to 1890. 65 

any ; and there had been one in which I acted a very 
important part in, I reconciliating two of the lest men 
(every one in his way) I have ever seen or known and 
I have done it unknown to them, until done but not how; 
the matter between them was of a very delicate nature 
and the parties more sensitive yet. I had to use a great 
deal of diplomacy or maybe of vice ! according to my no- 
tions (etymological) for I did not think I could practice 
diplomacy^ which expression conveys to my mind the 
fanciful idea of " double maker " of m,ischief as it has 
done often in international affairs causing hloody wars 
between two friendly nations and all that caused by 
diplomatists set at work by miserable wretches not 
worth the rope or the axe they ought to have been dis- 
patched to hell with such as that ne plus ultra debased 
scoundrel^ Napoleon the Thirds that arrant, nefarious 
beastly human being, sustained by such worthies as 
^' Bazaine''^ and "tutti quanti" of the same breed. 
Excuse me this onslaught on venomous wild or rather 
civilized wild beasts. I could not refrain making this 
explosion of my bile — choler .... 

Let us return to our litigation of our friends again ! 
and more intimate than ever before, until one of them de- 
parted, the one viho stuck his preference on the " Spec- 
tabile " and Madame Phanerogyne's punch flavored 
with cherry bounce — the one ever ready to plan an ex- 



Q6 Autobiography and 

curslon to the haunts of Spectabile — the main spring of 
our complicated mirth machinery and always,with the 
countenance of a judge presiding a criminal court or 
as Mr. Corning defined him: As an undertaker who 
would have lost his wife .... If ? he had loved her 
when she lived. That genial man whose seriousness 
was so rigid in appearance, could be dissolved with the 
Bimple cliemical preparation of two or three good jokes 
and one or two glasses of good Sauterne wine, or in 
presenting him with a bouquet of sjpectdbile^ or any 
other flowers, and in presenting him the flowers or a 
French ^^ Bouillon " and a glass of cherry wine, and tell 
him, " This for fraterniti/s sake ! " This word, that 
I think I used for the first with him, would literally 
galvanize him. Let him " Requiescat in pace." All 
thy friends will remember thee as long as they live, 
especially thy " connecting link " — L. M. Here I 
only speak for myself, and very likely the other li7ilcs 
of our chain feel the same. So, Adieu ! adieu ! ! per- 
haps ? resurgamus in Cypripedibus ! "We shall " Re- 
suscitate in Cypripediums !!".... 

Shall I continue to give the diagnosis of our mem- 
bers ? Mr. Corning, our president, was in some respects 
a fit match for our departed friend, the " spectabile^'* 
to whom Mr. Dinsmore, of Staatsburgh-on-the-Hud- 
son, could be added to complete a triumvirate of con- 



Recollections to 1890. 67 

summate experts in theoretical jokes, and occasionally 
'practical ones. These three together, could have en- 
tertained our company a whole night. Alas ! of those 
three genial men two are gone forever, and at this 
very moment one of our most eminent members, our 
old friend Mr. "Wm. Gre}^, Mr. Coming's gardener, is 
very dangerously sick .... To close these sketches of 
our friends, and for the "Bonne Bouche," delicious 
morsel, I will introduce you to my — our friend, Mr. 
A. R. Smith, the Trojan drover of calves- Yanda Cor- 
ningiana, the brothers and sons of the cow and calf 
that were sold to Mrs. Morgan, of !N"ew York, the : 
personified Providence of the Orchids dealers of both 
continents, American and European. 

Our last link J for being the Omega, the last, is not 
the less important for his collection of orchids, but is 
next to Mr. Corning, and at one time Mr. Corning 
sighed for the possession of some orchids he had, espe- 
cially for a specimen of " Phalsenopsis grandiflora 
aurea^"* as we have never seen its equal since, and even 
to-day he has specimens of Cymbidium eburneum, 
Cymbidium Mastersianum, Cymbidium Lowianum, 
Lowianum, from three to six feet in diameter, Coelo- 
gyne cristata, Coelogyne Ocellata maxima and Coelo- 
gyne, Massangena, etc., inferior to none. Of Mr. Cor- 
ning's collection of all kinds of orchidiacse. It is useless 



68 Autobiography and 

to enumerate, they are too well known. Just now he 
has Cjpripedium, SpicGrianum^ cardinale^ Schroder- 
ianum. For one of them I would give my head ifl 
could see, the 'plants^ after it would be off my shoul- 
ders. Ihope ! you will understand that this last phrase 
of mine is platonical / . . . , old as my head is I would 
not give it for an orchid, and besides, if I was willing 
to make such a bargain, nobody would accept it ; one 
would rather have a large pum.pkin, or.... anything 
else. 

I have mentioned somewhere that our club had its 
meetings once in a while, here and there ; that is, with 
one exception, at Mr. Coming's suburban villa, or here 
at our " rus in urbe," bicoque, or shanty, in English. 
I say bicoquG or shanty, paltry house, because I have 
heard that Caesar (that heroic butcher), had said to his 
satellites and company, that he preferred to be the Jlrst 
in a shanty than the *' second''^ in Rome. So do I ; I 
prefer to be living in a shanty paid for, than in a pal- 
ace mortgaged for more than its value ; or drink a cup 
of tea or coffee, than the best champagne drunk before 
paid, and often never paid at all. I don't remember 
if when our meetings met here at our nest — what 
nest ? will you say, the nest where I kept my rara 
avis, i\\2Xflew from Astoria to Albany — do you for- 
get ? I do not know if our members found the recep- 



Eecollections to 1890. 69 

tion we gave them equalled to Mr. Coming's ; but I 
am sure we did the best we could in our sphere of 
action, and I recollect well that at one time we had a 
certain wine named Barsao. that loosened the tono^ues 
amazingly^ in spite of you. 

I forget that some years before that Barsao episode^ 
we, my friend, Mr. A. E. Smith and I, had bought a 
cask of white wine, German or French, I forget, that 
was so exhilarating when you had drunh a small glass 
full, you felt like flying ! Any how, it made one talk 
more than he ought to, telling you what he had done, 
and what he would in the future. The color of that 
wine was so seducing, so bewitching, so sympathetic, 
that when you had enough you wanted more ! like 
" Oliver Twist ! ! " only the former had too much and 
the latter not enough. 

That wine was so tempting I cannot find Eng- 
lish expression to describe its influence on one's system, 
all I can recollect to-day is that Mr. Smith and I decided 
in our wisdom it was the best preparation you could 
administer to a man on whom you wished to make 
some psychological observation. Finely we baptized it 
" Eayons du Soleil ! ! Rays of the Sun ! ! "We never had 
since so good. The next we had after was so inferior that 
we called it the ''Rays of the Moon," and it hardly de- 
served that name. Since I am born I have never seen 



70 Autobiography and 

such wine. When you had a small glass on your stomach 
it immediately went to your head, just like a pan of 
milk on the fire, ran over and set instantly the moment 
you take it off. The sensation you felt in your head 
was celestial ! . . . . but of short duration but ! . . 

From this lengthy dissertation I expect that those 
who may read it will think that I am a worshipper of 
wine, naturally. Speaking so enthusiastically of wine 
and drinking it. I am no more a devotee to liquors than 
you are of drinking cold water to excess. This sort of 
apology made let us speak no more of it. But of what 
shall I speak of ? Not of the Orchid Club, although I 
have another sitting to recount, but not immediately. 
"We have had enough of Orchids, too much, for since 
many years I have often, in a measure, cursed them, for 
they have been the principal cause of the neglect in 
which all other kinds of plants have fallen, and there 
are many more interesting that good many Orchids 
hardly worth the water they drink ! ! I pray you ! in- 
feverished orchidists or orchidophiles or hoth, do not 
take it too hard if I jeer your hobbies ! Our orchido- 
mania^ it has hurt my pantomania if I am permitted 
to use such an expression, seemingly " far-fetched and 
dear bonght ! " With reason I say dear hought; for 
many of the plants I have bought of late years are 
now commercially speaking worthless ! and I charge 



Kecollections to 1890. 71 

your monomania to have worked that plague that 
ostracism against any thing which is not Orchids or 
Hoses. 

I shall have sometning more to say about Orchids, 
etc., etc. 1 am trying to remember if I have not 
forgotten some incidents connected with my intimate 
life, and I find that I have overlooked perhaps the 
most important event of my life, except my 'binding 
with the chains of matrimony. It is the celebra- 
tion of the anniversary of my seventieth birthday in 
ISn^ epoch of the most flourishing of our Club and also 
of our business, and every thing else connected with 
private horticulture. We were all under the impression 
of that first grand international exhibition in Philadel- 
phia, 181(6. At that time our lover of Spectabile, and also 
our proselyte who bought the Vanda ! were both alive. 
These two, with probably some others unknown to me, 
had a consultation with my wife about their mutual de- 
sire to have me celebrating my birthday without letting 
me know what they intended to do, and asked her if 
she was a woman who could Iceep a secret. She an- 
swered them she thought she could, but wanted to know 
what it was before binding- herself. They did, and she 
kept the secret so well that I did'nt know any thing but 
the day of the ceremony. The preparations could not be 
kept secret for me, but the details nothing. Only one 



72 Autobiography and 

day or two before tlie 'idi of August my wife asked me if 
I would pay a bill of $30 or about she was about to make* 
I said I would but I ought to know. She said she could 
nor would not tell me. You will know after. I want 
" carte blanche" for every thing, and she had her own 
way, and I have never had such a day since. We had one 
of our greenhouses empty that one of our friends dec- 
orated with palms, etc., where a table had been fixed 
for fifteen or more persons ; and next to that bouse 
another separated from where we sat, that we could 
not see inside of it. My wife had a band of music 
thatnoneof uscZw55^5^5 and others knew nothing about. 
It was only at desert, when we began to drink cham- 
pagne that we heard the band of music playing the 
Marseillaise, Yankee Doodle, etc. And at that time, mo- 
ment, minute^ our friend the Spectahile ! placed in my 
plate a little box, containing a splendid gold watch, with 
the names engraved of same of the members of our 
club. I was so much surprised that for a few seconds 
I was speechless. I could not say yes ! and yet, as a 
rule, I talk too much. The hearing of that mnsic and 
the presentation of that watch galvanized me for many 
seconds, for I did not expect any such things for a sur- 
prise ; it was a surprise ! ! that made me feel proud 
of being seventy years old, although it is the age of the 
decline of life, when a man is considered no longer a 
man in the real acceptation of the word man ! But 



Eecollections to 1890. 73 

after I had recovered from the commotion, and being 
able to analyze my feelings and retrospective thoughts, 
I felt half intoxicated with delight, and considering 
that all those friends were men with religious creed 
and principles diametrically opposed to mine in many 
respects, and with some in politics also ; and yet .... 
any one can draw his conclusions ; as for me, Ifelty 
and to this day I feel, in the deejpest recess of my souly 
of my heart, a sensation of 7nore than delight, but that 
I cannot define to my satisfaction. I can feel, but I 
can't describe, how, I have received so much respect 
and devotion from men so different of me, in many 
respects. All that I can tell is that I feel something 
like of an immense vanity for attentions paid to me in 
many circumstances in the course of my life, and that, 
several times from people who had calumniated me in 
a scandalous manner, and who after rendered me jus- 
tice so spontaneously as they had defamed me. One 
instance, in which I take pleasure in relating. When 
I was corresponding with the heing ! who became 
my consort for fifty years, she lived with some luhe- 
warm friends in Albany who did not like my corre- 
spondence with the above person, because it thwarted 
their views in some ways. The lady friend told her 
that she ought not to correspond with such a man, that 
they knew (they had been told) that I was an awful 
hloody Republican, who would kill a man like a fly ; 
7 



T'i Autobiography and 

that besides being a Eepublican ! that I had a wife and 
several children in France. . ,,3Ludi the rest of the 
eulogy ran in the same direction. Was not such a 
recommendation fit to help me in winning the heart 
of that woman ? However, she listened to the advice 
but continued to correspond with me, without giving 
me information of the ' ' platonic wife and children ;" 
but she wrote me about some things she wanted to 
know. I answered the letter immediately, with the 
alacrity of a lover hona fide ! but at the same time a 
little wounded in his dignity. I wrote a letter of four 
pages of large paper, where I gave a rapid sketch of 
my life (not as this one I am writing to-day, but one 
that would carry conviction in any soul who would 
have had a doubt). I have that letter yet, and many 
others from both of us. As she had received that let- 
ter and just done reading it, the lady friend ! ? came, 
while she had the letter in her hands. She said. Miss 
Jackson ! notwithstanding what we have told you, you 
continue to correspond with that man ! f ! f The Mis& 
Jackson, the timid hird^ but with a strong mind, an- 
swered her, yes, madam ! I have ; and I was going to 
show you the letter, to read it with care ; then to give 
me your impression, after reading it ; and according to 
your answer I shall hreah the correspondence or con- 
tinue it. Please read on. It must have taken her at 
least half an hour to read it, because it had been writ« 



Recollections to 1890. 75 

ten in wonderful agitation, excitement, wrath, indigna- 
tion, despised love — I thought, but I soon found I 
was mistaken. That letter was a specimen of Egyptian 
(hieroglyphs). Written in French ! as we corre- 
sponded. When she had read it she stood in front of 
that Miss Jackson and said : 

Mon enfant ! Fhomme qui a ecrit une lettre comme 
celle-ci n'est pas un homme ordinaire ! et vous n'avez 
pas vonhi le croire, cette homme \k sent vivement et 
vous avez doute de sa veracite, vous avez en tort ! . . . . 

English op the above : My child ! the man who has written 
such a letter is not an ordinary man ; he feels vividly, he ex- 
presses his emotions with warmth ; and you have doubted his 
veracity ; you have been wrong ! 

You understand this spmitaneous confession ? Com- 
pare it with the Uoody Republicam^ ! etc., and draw 
your conclusion .... 

Now, I'll tell you ; \felt ten times more gratified of 
that candid confession than I had been vexed, indig- 
nant, of the calumny. In plain English, my vanity 
was high flattered . Some other time I shall tell you 
another historical anecdote almost similar, with a very 
eminent man in his sphere, at the time, in Jersey City. 
But it was not a love quarrel, but a horticultural non^ 
sense, as we are all liable to do. 



76 Autobiography and 

Since that anniversary of mine in 1877, our " Spec^ 
tahile^'' Mr. Pierson of Troy, managed to induce us to 
have another, in 1879, under the pretext that we ought 
to have an opening ! on account of having built a new 
greenhouse, and by doing so we should kill two birds 
with one stone. "We did it, and our cl ub association pre- 
sented me again with a token of their friendship, in 
presenting me, not a watch, but something as valuable, 
if not more ; a sort of " pabulum animi ;" ' ' food for the 
mind," the American, Appleton's Encyclopedia. Two 
or three years later they presented me for the third time, 
with a handsome set of crystal glasses, in all varieties, for 
all kinds of wine and other liquors. I, of coursBy 
expressed my gratitude, but, I made the observation 
that they had made a mistake ; they ought to have 
presented me with as many varieties of wine and liquors 
as they had given me of difierent shape glasses ; that 
we could drink good wine in ordinary glasses, if we 
had anything to drink ; but we could not drink with- 
out some liquid. Well ! he said, always our promoter, 
the " Sjpectdbile^^'' we might have done so, but we did 
not want to trust our tastes in such a delicate matter 
as a choice of leverage. We thought it would be bet- 
ter to leave that to you, a man who had spent thirty 
years of his life in the two best provinces of France, 
producing wines, such as ''Burgundy and Cham- 



Recollections to 1890. 77 

pagne." We know the value of crystal ware but not 
of wine. So joa see that we have acted wisely, is it 
not ? Besides, when wine is drunk there is nothing 
left but empty bottles, useless ; but the glasses may be 
nsed " ad libitum ;" " when you have something to 
put in." Anyhow, these glasses might be used for 
the future generations of orchids' clubs, who could 
drink your health when you will be gone to Heaven, 
where we sincerely hope you will go when you will 
leave us, unless you should prefer to go whither you 
may meet your nightmare Mr. Linden who swindled 
you "on that" line bifurcated line you said, in 1877. 

Here ends nearly our Orchid club frolics — sub- 
scientific evolutions. Some of us had tried to keep up 
the ^' Sacred fire,'^^ but our combustible was exhausted, 
and our last neophyte, proselyte who had the ^'stimu- 
lant " had given up his office where he kept the holy 
matches to light the sacred fire^ which burned his fin- 
gers, then later our " Sjpectahile " had also departed (sud- 
denly) ; then another member, Capt. of a steamboat on 
I — was going to say the " Styx ! " that river " Lethe " 
makes me forget every thing ! I meant the Hudson 
river, so we hardly had a quorum left. So that since 
we have been living on our former reputation. Yet 
we have a few remainders of our laurels. " Sic transit 
gloria Mundi." " Thus fades the glory of the world." 



78 AUTOBIOGKAPHY AND 

Here I beg permission to introduce a parenthesis on 
a foreign subject to the one above, but which is a remi- 
niscence of my individuality. 

A few persons of my acquaintance have made me 
the remark that they like enough my digressions on any 
subject I write upon, but am too imaginative, my al- 
lusion and quotations are too cloudy, obscure, in short 
to speak as I do too cryptogamic (hidden.) Maybe it 
it is so, but I cannot very well refrain myself from 
doing it. It is inherent to my way of expressing my 
ideas. When I write I do so exactly as I feel, as I 
think, just to suit my vague notions, always going ahead 
and anxious to get at the end of what I have to say^ 
that often I leap over many words, and probably you 
have noticed it. I know it but I cannot help it, yet I 
try hard. l!^ext another peculiarity I have, when talk- 
ing of men, I always or almost take it for granted that 
all men are meUy more or less endowed with a certain 
amount of intelligence. It seems to me that to think 
differently would be a disguised insult. In my opinion 
the best way to make a man is to let him under- 
stand he is so ! And if he sees and is convinced he is 
deficient, he will likely try to get what he is deprived 
of ; if not you have lost your time .... but you have 
not offended his pride. I know there are men gen- 
erally styled smart ! (I use the word as I have heard 



Recollections to 1890. 79 

people using it, but it does not exactly touch the chord 
of my understanding in many ways) who would make 
a dollar where others could not make the fraction of one 
cent, but in intellectual affairs are quite green although 
with white hair, I just remember a very pleasant in- 
stance to illustrate what I have said above. 

Once I had a correspondent in New York to whom 
I wrote that since I had seen him, I had seen two of 
his friends. Both are now dead; both were or had the 
reputation of being smart, but one was smarter ; he 
had much more money than the other, and of course 
was superior and perhaps he was really so ! Both came 
to pay me a friendly f f visit ; for what I did not 
know. They were hoth antipathetic to me as I was to 
them, in a measure. I had absolutely nothing to in- 
terest them for one was almost physically Mind and the 
other only morally so, but both had what you call a 
^^ fellow-feeling^'' both were well matched. I felt like 
to ask them what the devil has induced you to come 
and see me ? But according to what I have told you 
supra I did not ; on the contrary, as it was a warm 
day, I offered them refreshment. They did not accept. 
So far all right. They thanked me and I went away. 
It was the same day I wrote to my correspondent the 
word ''^ sub rosa'''' not to mention the above ^' pane- 
gyric of his friend above." He could not very well 



80 Autobiography and 

read my handwriting, so he went to see a friend of 
him who could decipher mj hieroglyphics, Mr. Y. 
MurMa?idy who explained him the contents of my 
letter, but he was not satisfied ; he maintained that I 
wanted roses, but did not say how many I wanted nor 
the kind. Mr. Murkland told him I wanted none at 
all. By God ! he said : look at the word Rosa / does 
it not mean Roses ? No ! it means for you not to tell 
your friend what he has written to you, but he add 
that you can do it if you feel so ; he does not care. 

Now you will perhaps believe that I think that man 
was an ass, not a hit of it; he was as smart as any 
one called so; he was ignorant of the meaning of that 
word, but he had no pretensions. Ignorance is not 
stupidity but if he had any pretension to know things 
that he did not he would be stupid^ that's my way to 
define ignorance. I do not not know Hebrew^ yet I do 
uot consider myself an idiot because I am not a poly- 
glot. See what it is to have too much modesty. I say 
that I do not know Hebrew language when I do! 
Amen! is Hebrew and / know it in English and 
French, etc. So I am a polyglot also ! 

Now I have better to return to my subject, digres- 
sions on smartness — as a rule the community judge by 
the label in the scale where the merits of men and 
things are appreciated according to their specific weight 



Recollections to 1890. 81 

(in money) not in sterling value. Tlie why ! they 
came to see me has 2i\.vf2i.j^ puzzled my mind. It was 
not love for certain. I am at a loss unless they wished to 
see if I was always the same animal of old time. For 
many years and perhaps to-day yet, I have been a sort 
of curious heasty not mischievous, and not willing to 
bark with all sorts of hounds for them I was al- 
ways the " Albany Dutchmanr It is not everybody 
who can be a Dutchman and being born in France ! 
and besides claiming to be a Yankee ! in the good sense 
of the word ; I feel proud to be a Yankee, at least 
Yankeefied morally, if not physically. I am proud to 
be ever so Yankeefied when I hear our Uncle Sarri say: 

God means to make this land, John ! ! ! 

Clear thru, from sea to sea ! ! 
Believe an' understand, John, 
The wuth o' bein' free ! ! ! 

Ole Uncle S. Sez he, "I guess, 
God's price is high," sez he ; 
"But nothin' else than wut He sells 
Wears long, an' thet J. B. 
May learn like you an' me ! ! ! " 

Amen ! 

** Vive la Republique ! ! ! 
The Sun God and liberty ! ! ! 
And down with politic iniquity." 

Here in this moment I drop my pen and rub my 
forehead to rest, to meditate on what we have done 
since I came to light. I could not see the light, but 



82 AUTOBIOGBAPHY AND 

the light saw me, and I thiuk has since lighted me 
through my accidental life, which I suppose is now near 
to its end, and yet I do not think I have stored much 
wisdom in that lapse of time — 84 years — I cast a retro- 
spective look on the time past ; I consider in bulk, en 
7nasse, all that we have done, and seen since nearly a 
century and I cannot realize all the wonderful, mar- 
vellous events that have been accomplished in the 
human life. It bewilders my understanding. The 
discovery and application of electricity, steam naviga- 
gation, railroad, the velocity with which we live and 
also die ! I wanted to rest, and I perceive that I am 
philosopHASTRiNG (for philosophizing) like if I had the 
conviction to moralize the whole world. I come to 
think I have better to continue my digressions on use- 
less matters that give me an occasion to prate, to exer- 
cise my pragmatical notions .... after all I think it is 
my privilege, the privilege of old folks, to be loqua- 
cious, besides with me, it is a hygienic necessity to let 
off the superabundance of foolish ideas which condense 
in what takes the place of my hrain. So pray ! be in- 
dulgent for old men ; you may also get old and wish- 
ing to babble as I do. I will rest a little, then perhaps 
I shall recollect some anecdotes to relate. Amen ! for 
the time being. 

Now that I have rested a little I can resume the cur- 



Eecollections to 1890. 83 

rent of my spinning phrases that I am afraid will wear 
out the patience of those who may try to read them. 
I have given the diagnosis of several of the members 
of our Orchid Club, but I have forgotten one — of 
Mr. Dinsmore of Staatsburgh on the Hudson, a great 
lover of all kinds of vegetation, trees, shrubs, orchids, 
roses, foliage, plants, and above all johes in which he 
was a speciaHst. One day he came with two friends ; 

one was a Mr. Wells, of Buffalo. I believe the 

other one a Trojan, not of the ancient city of Asia 
Minor, but Troy, N". Y., named Virgil, not Yirgil the 
Latin poet, but an expressman living in Troy. Mr. 
Dinsmore with his cheerful and dignified manner told 
me^ Mr. Menand I have the pleasure to introduce these 

two gentlemen friends of mine, one is Mr. Wells 

belonging to an express association of Buffalo, who 
does not care much for plants except the fermented 
juice of the grape vine or the distilled seeds of rye or 
wheat. The other one is Mr. Yirgil to whom you can 
tell all your jaw-hreahing names of plants ; he under- 
stands Latin as the author of the Bucolics^ etc., then 
burst into an inextinguishable laughing, in which the 
four of us participated^ Mr. Dinsmore and I par- 
ticularly. I did not know if Mr. Wells understood the 
joke, but Mr. Virgil's laugh was hitter sweet, for I do 
not think he knew what was Yirgil the poet. I thought 
from his look that he had an idea he was the laughing 



84: Autobiography and 

stock, but I was not sure. However, Mr. Dinsmore 
and I enjoyed. As we are at it I may as well finish 
mj evening in introducing you to Mr. Dinsmore, and 
let you know his humour. As we were walking through 
our green houses looking at plants, he said : Menand ! 
3''ou have very fine plants but by God ! he said you 
charge for them like the devil — you shin — you roh 
people ! ain't it ? Maybe I do, " but one thing is cer- 
tain, if you had never robbed your customers any more 
than I have robbed mine," to-day you could not afford 
to buy any ! Why ? because you would have no money 
to pay for ! He laughed and said : An expressman is 
not a gardener ! I know it, a gardener can only rob his 
customers in retail and only once in a long while; 
whilst the express man robs the public Daily — Whole- 
sale and retail all the year round. You probably think 
he got mad ? N"ot the least, for in less than half an hour 
I had sold him for $200 or more, and every time he 
came he acted about the same ; he lived upon jokes as 
bees on honey. Many persons have told me he was a 
rough, coarse man; perhaps he was in words but not 
in actions as far as I have known, and I have dealt 
with him 25 or 30 years and I have hnown some of his 
deeds m philanthropy that many sanctified hypocrites 
would not have done unless every body had seen them 
doing good, when he would do good in secret 1 1 ! I 
have known a philanthropic lady, Mrs. Miller, in hia 



Recollections to 1890. 85 

immediate locality, Rhinehech, Datchess county, N. Y. 
who told me she did not like him ; that he was what I 
have said above. I tried to talk with her to change 
her convictions, but she would not hear, and yet she 
was a henevolent woman^ exoeedingly so ! but she had 
preventions against him, she was prejudiced. It is only 
many years later that I got the knowledge of Mr, 
Dinsmor^s occult charity — without ostentation. That 
lady was dead or I would have told her what he had 
done with his *' rough harkP When talking of good 
actions I must mention this lady I am talking about. 
It was during the Secession War. I had sold her a 
lot of plants, and I had promised her to go and set 
them in the greenhouse. When done she said, do you 
not think it would require a few more to look good, 
they are too far apart. I agreed with her — of course. 
Any one, a gardener or an expressman do not object to 
receive money. Well, she replied, I can afford it ; I 
have so much money to spend for my pleasure ; now, 
I ask your advice ; which is the best to spend the money 
I have in buying more ^plants or dispose of that money 
for the poor wounded soldiers and other needy people f 
That argument was ad, hominem/^ I answered. Madam, 
I would be glad to get that money for plants I have to 
sell, but your appeal to my judgment is such that I 

* Argument that goes to heart, conscience of a man. 



86 AtTTOBIOGRAPHY AND 

say : Dispose of that money for what you propose, for 
the soldiers and other human beings, suffering, from 
that fratricide war ; be benevolent to loth the nic- 
torioiis and the vanquished. They all are our brothers, 
fathers, mothers, without distinction of race^ creed in 
religion or in politics. " The moral in action " or re- 
ligion if you please, although/br me, there is an Ocean! 
of difference between loth, but for many it is probably 
synonymous, so we are all right in our intentions only 
we differ in our ways of worshipping God ! or going 
to Heaven ! This is only an affair of aesthetics, as all 
roads go to Rome ! only I think the straight line is the 
shortest, don't you ? ... . "If strong minded, charit- 
able people, philanthropists go to Heaven the above 
lady * Mrs. Miller ' ought to have a double selected 
seat there, 

N. B. — I began the above episode on digression or 
divagation on gardener's and expressman's swindling, 
and I conclude on moralizing. The extremes meet — 
and we progress .... slowly in moral affairs. 

In the period of 1856-58-59, when the Brooklyn Hort. 
Society, erat floruit, was flourishing, I got acquainted 
with a very sympathetic gentleman in good many ways, 
but with exceptions. He was very fond* of plants, and 
a refined taste, always with some exceptions ; he was 
enthusiastic and liberal ; when he took a fancy to a plant 



Kecollections to 1890. 8T 

he did not stop for a few cents or dollars. He lived in IN". 
Jersey city; he had a good collection of choice plants, 
even Orchids, that began to attract attention. He was 
jealous of my few laurels and told me that he would soon 
compete against me and meant to distance me. I an- 
swered him that it was just what I wanted, I wished, 
opposition, " as to vanquish without danger was a vic- 
tory or triumph without glory. I do not recollect the 
particulars of our first contest. I only remember that we 
had a prize offered for a single plant for one foliage or 
variegated plant ; he had " Rhopala corlovadensis " and 
I had "Dioon edule" a Mexican species of Cycadese; both 
we were absent when the prize was awarded ; he got 
second, I got first. That little shirmish seemed to dis- 
turb his equanimity, for when we met he asked me if 
I did not think the judges had made a mistake ; that 
his plant was the hest. I told him I could not help it, 
to ask the judges and perhaps they would rectify then- 
mistake. Well, he said, you know better ; perhaps I 
do, but even so, I am not a judge; I cannot alter 
their decision. Both plants were new and had never 
been exhibited before. He said his plant was newer; 
both had been imported from England and Belgium ; 
he said his plant was more valuable, he had paid £2. 
I told him mine cost me £5 (was not that a silly dia- 
logue for two seemingly sensible men ?) The current 
of events went on, and came another Exhibition ; we 



88 Autobiography and 

competed for six Variegated plants, and lie competed 
for one Single Yariegated with somebody else. He 
defeated me for six, but got beaten for one single plant, 
and that exasperated him ; he was furious all that 
day ; he waited until evening to see me, to have my 
opinion, and when arrived at the Athenseum building, 
where was the exhibition, he took me with one arm as 
a policeman would have taken a pick-pocket caught 
in flagrante delicto, and told me come ! I will show you 
what your judges have done ! We were in front of 
the table where the plants stood, and a crowd discussing 
about the award. He said : Here is a man for whom I 
care more than all of you, a judge of plants ; if he says 
you have acted right when you gave me the second 
premium, I will confess 1 am wrong. They had taken 
off the labels so I could not see which was first or 
second; I did not want it. During all these preliminaries 
I stood stern and grave as Solomon, when he decided 
between the two mothers. They asked me which was 
the best plant ; I put my finger on the Anoechtochilus, 
I now forget the specific name, it had golden leaves, 
it was a pretty plant, it had the 2d prize, Caladium. 
Caladium Chantiui the 1st, the 2d prize was his plant. 
When he heard my decision he said : It is all right now, 
I know what I wanted to know, so saying, he went 
out. Here I see that I have made a lapsus, after hearing 
that C. Chantini had the Ist prize ; I asked who were 



Recollections to 1890. 89 

the asses who had awarded the premiums ? The chair- 
man of the committee who was behind me, pulled by 
a sudden jerk the skirt of my coat, so as to say, Jceep 
your tongue, but it was too late, so I uttered again the 
same expression, so that the audience could see I did 
not want any misunderstanding ; that chairman was a 
nice quiet man, a German gardener — a florist of 
Brooklyn, called Ranch ; he had a great knowledge of 
plants, he was well educated, but he was too fond of 
PLEASURE ! ! and his income did not permit him to culti- 
vate such a common plant, but expensive to grow in 
specimen ! ! In that circumstance he was what the 
French call '^ Tirer le Diable par la queue," "■ Pulling 
the Devil by his tail," to be hard up ; that is to say, 
not independent. Our owner of the AnoeGhtochilus 
was gone, but the litigation about the awards of the 
two plants was not settled yet ; after our owner of 
Anoechtochilus was gone the chairman of the committee 
tried to justify himself. He said: Mr. Menand ! you 
have been too rash in your decision ; had you known 
the whole affair you would not have talked as you did. 
We gave the 1st prize to the Caladium because we 
found out that the Anoechtochilus was not his plant, 
he had 'borrowed it from Mr. P., his friend, a few 
days before the exhibition. Well, my friend ! Your 
justification is worse than yoviV fault. If you had found 
— discovered the trick you ought not to award him any 



90 Autobiography and 

piize at all, but have him disqualified ! He would prob- 
ably have done it but he durst not. You understand 
the reason ? that gentleman Borrower of 'plants as I 
have said, was a liberal man and as I understood very wil- 
ling to oblige his friends, and our chairman was deeply 
under obligations to him. Hence the award^ j^^^P" 
ing from the frying pan into the fire. — But it seemed 
that they had not discovered the whole series of tricks 
used at that exhibition. In the lot of six variegated 
or foliage plants exhibited against me there were two 
that came from the same place at the Ancechtoehilus I 
The owner afterward confessed to me that it was a 
raean trick and would never do it again. In the 
morning, after all our plants were arranged on the 
table, I gave a look over the whole exhibit, and I 
thought I knew some of the plants as not belonging to 
the man who had them exhibited, but of course it 
never occurred to me that either of those two men 
would resort to such mean tricks, for both men ap- 
peared to me as gentlemen, one^ at least,, as any, 
farther I can not tell, both men were intimate friends f 
— as it is generally understood, but the Lender was a 
auhaltern to the Borrower and you know ! " Borrow- 
ing dulls the edge of husbandry " and also the edge of 
friendship in the occasion ! ! 

Both of those friends had shown me a great deal of 



Eecollections to 1890. 91 

deference in many wajs, notwithstanding our diverg- 
ence of opinion in many things. 

Later, in the course of horticultural events, etc., I 
had some difficulty with one of them, even with both. 
Yet, if this day I had any trifling influence in the 
Celestial Kegions, to open to them the gates of the 
kingdom of Heaven, I would do it, although I do not 
know what has become of them since that time. 

From that exhibition of goodiplsints and dirty tricks, 
our Amateur No, 1st had resolved in his liberal mood 
and sub-wisdom to have a special premium, " to be 
qfered^^ by the Brooklyn Hort. Society to the best 
collection of all kinds of plants, foliage, or flower- 
ing plants, which had never been exhibited in America. 
That prize to be a large silver pitcher and half dozen 

goblets of the same metal, worth $500 or $600 ! 

He was willing it seemed to pay for, but, with the 
understanding it would be awarded to him. A meet- 
ing to that effect was held in Jersey City, 1 think in 
his own residence, I am not positive, having lost the 
document that my informant, Mr. Alexander Gordon, 
gardener to Mr. Hoyt of Astoria, L. I., had given me 
of the proceedings of the meeting. My friend A. 
Gordon had been delegated by the Brooklyn Hort. 
Society. ' After the reading of the resolution he rose 
and said, Mr. Y. W. : I understand that you want to 



92 AUTOBIOGEAPHY AND 

offer a premium which "you will pay for" and take a 
mortgage on our Bona fide. Willingness to support 
your seheme ! that's plain English, and, We, I under- 
stand, shall have to compete against you, with our 
'pennies against your dollars f That " Gordian Knot " 
can not be untied by any one of us, our shades are not 
sharp enough to cut it, and we have not '' Alexander'' s " 
(the great) sword to cut it, unless it be 7ni7ie ! ! 
Alex. Gordon and I am not willing to lend nor send it 
neither to our Hort. Soc. nor any body else. 

That practical oration closed the meeting. The day 
after my friend sent me an abridged account of the 
proceeding, and I immediately wrote to our Lender (A 
plants of what I knew about the Premium Silver Goblet 
and Pitcher that was to be awarded at our next exhi- 
bition in Brooklyn. I told him that I had made up 
my mind, and I was preparing my energy for the con- 
test, and that I was confident to annihilate the "Jersey 
Blues " and bring the Pitcher and silver goblets to Al- 
bany, and that when they would visit Albany, and the 
Albany Dutchman^ I could treat them with Albany ale 
(then famous) served up" in those goblets, etc. When 
in my vein of joking T think I made some allusions to 
our " Borrower J^o. 1," whom I supposed was a " Cen- 
turion " in the legion of "Jersey Blues." That letter 
was private, but somehow or another it fell in the 



Recollections to 1890. 93 

bands of the " Centurion," Borrower Ko. 1, by the 
agency of the Lender, JSfo. 2. Some explanations 
were given to me about that diminutive scandal, but 
I did not believe a word of it. However, a few days 
after my onslaught on our " Centurion " I received 
from him a letter of four pages of the size I write 
these historical divagations^ of close writings of ahuse 
rather silly, and the man was not a fool, but his 
pride had been wounded. He began his letter 
by " Here inclosed my check for $50, amount of bill 
rendered to me for plant wrongly labelled^'' etc., etc. 
So you can see he was honest. I liked that sort of 
exordium, but his long epistle, and its longer and more 
abusive and silly peroration, made me mad first, 
then I laughed with pity for I had a foible for him. 
Nine-tenths of his letter, if not all, was the most elabo- 
rate theme of Billingsgate rhetoric I have seen. He 
evidently had made up his mind to make the letter as 
long as he could, and I resolved to make my answer as 
short as possible. In that letter he threatened me to 
send me one like it every week. He never did it. It 
seemed he had told his friend he would do so. The 
friend told him not to send it to me, and if I should 
answer it, he would be sorry — I know Menand. When 
he got my answer, you will see below, he went to show 
it to him. He frankly told his friend he was sorry, 
hut too late. 



94 Autobiography and 

I cannot remember that letter. His letter, and my 
answer to it, I kept it for a few years. Then I destroyed 
hoik, fearing that perhaps later I would be tempted to 
make use of it, and be sorry after. 

Mk. y. W. : 

Dear Sir: Thanks for your check; receipt in- 
closed. I have received your theme of Billingsgate 
rhetoric. I have had some trouble to understand it, 
as I do not profess the English Belles-Lettres as you 
do. For instance, you tell me I do not like you because 
you have never treated me with a gin-cocked-tail. 
"Well, sir, I did not know what it meant, but a friend 
of mine tells me that if I want to know the meaning 
of it, I must go to the school where you have learned 
your Belles-Lettres, that is to say, with the company 
you associate with, viz : Blacklegs, pugilists, cock- 
fighters, rowdies of all sorts. Tours, 

L. MENAND. 

P. S. — The above letter, short as it is, is twice as 
long as the one I wrote at that date — 1858-9 ? My 
vein is too old to-day, I cannot recollect. 

Those who may have read my above lucubrations will 
probably think I have done with my of ten far-fetched 
prose. Remember : at the beginning of these reminis- 
cences I have said that my weak point was not lacon- 



Eecollections to 1890. 95 

ism. So you must expect some little disappointment ; 
after -all, jou know " the saying " There is no rose 
without thorns " and if any spines on my productions 
they are not as prickly as those of our modern Rose 
growers, and do not cost as much as your " American 
Beauties," and mine, not roses, but my productions 
"or flowers of rhetorics," will last longer even in a 
warm place, that is to be taken in consideration. All 
these few words are to let you know that I have more 
to say about my or our Amateurs — Lender and Bor- 
rowers of plants. After our exchange of amenities of 
the four jpages oi Billingsgate and my answer to it. 
"We had a truce I even peace — without laying down 
our weapons, that is to say in plain Enghsh, without 
ceasing to grow plants with which we had fought for 
the sake of glorious Vanity. I said we had peace ; my 
opponent after a while, when he cooled off, thought we 
had been foolish, and one day he came hither to our 
headquarters with the Olive branch, by intuition — we 
shook hands, and the peace was signed. Still, the man 
had always some of his tricky notions, though inoffen- 
sive, had habit only. We looked all over our plants^ 
new and old, it was the time we had the monomania of 
getting new plants often not worth the water they 
drank. I had several plants he had never seen as 
Latania aurea, Latania rubra, Thrinax argentea, etc. He 
did not know the names and wanted badly to hnow 



96 Autobiography and 

them, but he did not wish to ask nie depending on 
my itching for talking and that I would tell him what 
he wanted to know without asking, but by that time 
I had made some progress in the study of the '^ human 
heart," and I guessed! by his looks what was ferment- 
ing in his trains and I acted accordingly. I made up 
my mind he would not know one single name unless 
he should ask me twice or more. I suppose we went 
three times to and fro to look at all the plants he wished 
to know. It is rather tedious to use so many words for 
such a trifle, but I want to edify you whether you will 
or not, nolens-volens. I had (a variegated plant) a 
variety of a common English weed Coltsfoot. It looked 
very pretty as it was ; he saw it although it was some- 
what out of the way. He said first, it is very pretty. 
^' John has it tooP Do you know who was John f No 1 
nor I either, but I guessed^ I like to guess, especially 
when I am sure, the second time he passed by he said 
that plant will take in New York, but no progress had 
been done in getting the name. I was dumb as a snail 
and I did not draw my horns ; the third time he said : 
could you spare me one, and what-do-you-call-it ? "Well, 
I thought you told me John had it f If so it would be 
a great deal better to get it from him, I have not many. 
Well, he said, I would rather get it from you, send me. 
one with the other plants I have selected. Yes, I will do 
it. Then I told him: What the devil possessed you 



Recollections to 1890. 97 

to hesitate so much to ask after names. Do you think 
because a man knows more names of any thing he is 
better than one who does not ? Certes, it is a satisfac- 
tion to know the names of the objects yon ha/ce^ but I 
don't see the necessity to be so mysterious. A few 
more digressions on that not had man but ill-halanced. 
He once had asked me a list of the most remarkable 
plants I had seen, new or old, and also to his lender of 
plants. Both wanted something the other had not, 
that I understood it .... it was a laudable idea. I gave 
a list to both of about the same plants, but unknown 
to each other. Some weeks or months after, I now for- 
get, I met them in New York. They would not let me 
go unless I should go with them to Jersey city, to see 
some new plants they had just received from London. 
I was not very willing to go, but the Borrower insisted 
so much, and the Lender also, and in addition to my de- 
sire to see something that I had never seen, that I 
went. I expected they would talk again about our 
correspondence, but not a word was spoken on that 
scabrous subject. We were hardly in the office of the 
" Silver pitcher's originator," that he went in an ad- 
joining room and came with a basket of champagne. 
At that time champagne was still imported in willow 
baskets. The moment I saw it, it produced on me a, 
sudden commotion in all my body that I cannot de- 
scribe. My sensation then was surely a vivid pleasure 
L.ofC.9 



98 AUTOBIOGKAPHY AND 

and a wonderful amount of surprise mingled with alL 
I cannot find an expression to render what I felt. The 
i2iVCL0w^ ''^ gin-cocked-taiV* came to my mind at once, 
and I was already comparing the two liquors together. 
The most aristocratic with the most demagogic ! Do 
you realize earnestly the idea to offer me champagne 
after that anarchist gin-cocTced-tail. I had not fully 
recovered my presence of mind — my wits, when the 
wine was in the cups, when he raised his glass and said 
to the health of our Americanized friend, L. M. ! ! Do 
you think that was an apology for the insults he had 
tin-own in my face when he was unconscious of his 
doinss? In that moment I would not have exchanged 
it for the whole world. When we had drunk the 
contents of the bottle we went to see the new plants. 

With new sensations but with our same 

feelings of old, " Lupus piluni mutat, non mentem." 
^' The wolf changes its coat but not its character." 

When we came in presence of the group of newly 
imported plants, I, with reverence — admiration — sur- 
prise, took off my hat, and looked at the owner of the 
plants, and the plants also, while he did the same, ob- 
serving the external change of my feelings on my face — 
to find what they could be internally ; he could see my 
surprise in my eyes fixed on the plants, but I could 
also see in his countenance, he was literally palpitating 



Kecollections to 1890. 99 

with exultation, bliss, joy, to find lie had something 
I did not know or not seen ; in a few seconds of 
mutual contemplation, I exclaimed : Where have you 
found those plants ? ! You must have had trouble to 
get them, and you must have paid a good price for 
them, for they are, as far as I know, rare and difficult 
to have, even with money. Then he was to the apogee 
of his happiness ! But it did not last long, for he 
asked me, have you ever seen any of them ? Do you 
know the names of any ? Quietly as it becomes a man, 
an actor, if you please, who knows his part, I said yes, 
I know some of them, not all. Well, then, tell me? 
What is this ? What is that ? I looked at him, and 

told him. Why ! Mr. , you must have a very 

short memory ! Do you not recollect some time ago 
you asked me if I would not give you a list of the best, 
rarest, newest and most remarkable plants, old or new* 
I had seen ? He kept silent for a few seconds, then 
said : Tell me the names ! Instantly as a horse which 
feels the spur, I told him, here is Latania rubra, Thrinax* 
radiata, Cossignia borbonica gone ad jpatres, dead, this 
I have never seen but once, 35 years since, this I only 
knew the name, but could apply it. In a great deal less 
time than it has taken me to write these names, that, 
his arms, which rested on his haunches dropped on his 
thigha^ with a change in his countenance really alarm- 
ing for any one not knowing the cause. In that 



100 Autobiography. 

moment if he had translated his feelings in words, he 
would have said : What is the use to get pains, spend 
money to show that Franco- American, that we can 
get new plants as well as he does. It really pained me 
to see him so much affected for such a trifle, but such 
was his temper. All I have here related to you happened 
32 or 33 years ago, and " As to-day," " As in the time 
past," and "As in the future," " We are," " We have 
been," and " We shall be," susceptible, apt, to appre- 
ciate, the " Worthy," and the " Unworthy," the " Sub- 
lime and the Base," in cents and dollars so to day. I 
would willingly give $100 to shake hands with that 
man if he is alive. This is my sincere desire — wish. 
If he is dead, this is my memorial, " requiescito in 
face ! 

Rest thou in peace ! 

Thy friend, L. M. 



APPENDIX 



OF EETEOSPECTIYE RECOLLECTIONS, MISCELLANEOUS, OMIT- 
TED OR FORGOTTEN IN THE RECOLLECTIONS PROPER, 
CONTAINING ALL I HAVE WRITTEN SUBSEQUENTLY — AS 
FACTS AND INCIDENTS CAME TO MY MEMORY, WITHOUT 
ANY CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. 

Here a few necessary remarks. When I came to the 
decision to write my recollections it was with much 
hesitation, though my children, seeing my deep sorrow 
after the death of their mother, insisted persistingly, 
telling me to write the history of plant as I had often 
spoken of doing, or a sketch of my life from my young- 
est days to this day, that such occupation would absorb 
my gloomy thoughts and relieve my mental troubles, 
and give me some gratification in reviving incidents 
that happened 75 years ago or more. My souvenirs 
extend beyond 1814-16 to have seen the debris of that 
Waterloo butchery / . . ,, 

Meanwhile I accidentally came acquainted with the 
American Florist Co., Chicago, who solicited me to 
give them a few sketches of my life connected with 
horticultural affairs, as a man and gardener. As I have 



1^2 Appendix. 

said above I hesitated, fearing with potent reasons to 
undertake a task above my capacities, knowing my 
peculiarities not well-balanced for such a work, with 
my 'prime leaping tendencies to skip over a letter in a 
word, or words in a phrase, besides I had an idea that 
those sketches were to be short and concise, two quali- 
ties I am deprived of ; but amply gifted of two opposed 
deiectSy prolixity and digressions at loss of sight. But 
1 found that I was laboring under a mistake, that it 
was necessary to give the full understanding of what I 
was at the age 8 or 10 to 20 or more, to compare what 
I am at 85, the age of a young patriarch, as for the old 
ones I do not think I shall never attain the age of 
hiblical Abraham, and I do not wish it even if I was 
to have an Agar for helpmate when 175 years old, I 
could not forget my Phanerogyne of the old times, be- 
sides I am not constituted like Abraham was. . . . 

By dint of speaking of religious creed, Heaven and 
its antipode Hell, priests, etc., it has reminded me of 
an incident that happened nearly half a century ago. 
An individual, with whom I was slightly acquainted, 
told me that he had met a man who knew me well 
who had told him that I was a "knowing ! one, that I 
had studied to be a priest ! You hear 2i priest ! Good 
God ! if never since I was born, any body had studied 
any more than I had to be enlisted in that corporation 



Kecollections to 1892. 103 

there would be nobody to-day, to besot the simpletons 
except those older than I am, and I suppose the num- 
ber is limited to-day. God have pity for me, I have 

never meant to descend to that level although I 

think of it, when I was 10 or 12 years old, I heard 
an old woman telling my mother that one sister of her 
(my mother) had told her that if I would study to be 
a priest she would give all she had, and all she would 
be able to save as long as she lived to pay for my edu- 
cation in a Seminary. Was not that a strange coinci- 
dence ? that a man I hardlj^ knew should know such a 
circumstance, when myself I had forgotten it. 

One thing brings another. I recollect that my father, 
speaking of that aunt of mine, said one day to some- 
body who wanted to marry her for her money, that 
** she was pickled in holy water." She died a maid, 
and I think I must have had some of her money, for 
she died before my mother and sister, and they were 
heirs to her, and both my mother and sister died during 
the Secession War, and that I received from France, 
through a notary public, some $800, paid in gold, 
which at that time was worth $1,000. So you see the 
caprices of Destiny ! She wanted to give her money 
to make a saint! and she made a heretic her heir. 
However, if any body go to Heaven those two sisters 
ought to go ! ! . . . . 



104 Appendix. 

As I am making ray confession, I will make it com- 
plete without Jesuitic restrictions : I was 18 years, or 
about, after my father's death ; my mother, a Saint 
^' in bona fide " when out oi the j>resence^ or of the 
influence^ occult, of the^W^*^, but when immediately 
after that odious auricular confession, she was .... 
You will excuse me not to qualify my mother ! ! I am 
not a priest. I leave to the Supreme — " unhnown " 
judge, what that saint was. Suffice to say, it was the 
holy Thursday. I had as much to do in one day, as 
two men would have done in two days. She scolded 
me for not going to a religious ceremony. I told her 
that I had too much to do, I could not do it. . . . Well, 
she said: My child ! I shall be dainned, and you too ! 
for I am responsible for your soul and mine .... After 
that admonition of my poor minded mother, I felt — 
1 cannot attempt to describe it to you. I know no 
English words that would give you an adequate idea 
of my moral excruciating pain .... you understand, 
my mother I ! telling me I would be the cause of her 
damnation !!.... for a few seconds I could not speak, 
I felt paralyzed ; when I spoke, I said, 

" No I no ! mother, there will be no damnation. 
"If any, it will be for the hearer of your confession 1 

When I recovered from my stupor I told her with a 
tremulous voice, but with a strong determination ; 



Eecollections, 1825-26. 105 

Mother!! If l-knew-the-wretch who-has-confessed- 
you,-advised you-I would-go-tliis-minute-and strangle 
hiiriy if able to do it ... . She weeped bitterly, and I 
did not feel any better, if not worse \ she wept with 
grief! and I was choking with rage //.... O ! mal- 
ediction ! on the inventors of that odious confession ! 
After that semi-dramatic scene, I remained about two 
years longer with my mother and sister, but we had no 
more quarrels, if she spoke about religion I listened to 
her, I made no remarks, I answered by monosyllables, 
yes ! or no ! or very well I We had what we say in 
French, " Put water in our wine^"^ that is to say, 
every one of us tried not to hurt the other's feelings, 
so we had a truce ^ if not absolutely peace. Now 
readers, if any, allow me if you please, not to think I 
have been too impulsive, too exalted in my demonstra- 
tions to confess to you in writing to your eyes, not to 
your ears alone, not auricular. That in writing the 
above episode, I have shed as many tears than there 
are words in it, in this outburst of my indignation. 
"■ In 1826, ^^ years ago ! " 

After I had left my mother and sister in 1827, I 
went to see them again in 1835. We had been corre- 
sponding all the time. My mother was always the 
same, but we did not have any harsh expressions to 
exchange. I knew it was probably the last time we 



106 Appe:>idix. 

would see each other, so I did not tell them I had made 
up my mind to leave France, where I was called a 
heretic and blood drinker. I wrote to them after I 
got settled in Astoria, and a few years after we were 
settled in Albany. I sent them our Photographs of 
all of us, nearly one dozen ! ! as specimens of — pro- 
lific ! America ! Since, I have only seen France once, 
in 1878 ; and only from Dieppe to Paris. I have not 
been to the city where I was born, where I would not 
have known anybody (43 years), and I was not an 
" American uncle^^ and nobody would have recognized 
me. I was to go, but I missed a train I wanted to go 
by ; I had to wait three hours for another, then I mada 
reflections so sad! that I gave it up. 

I do admire "France." She has produced that 
" colossal ! that ^' immense " revolution of 1789 ! whose 
revolutionary commotions have slialien morally the 
whole civilized world. She has compelled all the 
Potentates of Europe (England excepted ; she is a grand 
nation also) to pass under the '* Furcse Caudines," i. e., 
the yolte of the revolutionary patriotic and emancipa- 
tory genius of France ! and that during many years, un- 
til her "'first evil genius " Napoleon I caused her to be 
twice invaded in one year ; and, many years later, her 
" second superimus evil scoundrel genius Napoleon III^ 
had her drowned in an ocean of ignominy. ... To all 



Kecollections, 1827. 107 

these calamities France can say '' Mea Culpa " " Max- 
ima Culpa." By so doing she will somewhat attenuate 
her wrongs, for her fondness of vain glory. They 
have given you a " quantum sufficit " of glory your 
uncle and his worthy nephew Two Emperors one 
after the other, is it not glorious ? and cheap above all, 
only for the hagatelle of two provinces ! it is for noth- 
ing except mountains of shame / . . . . that will not be 
levelled down as quickly as they have been created .... 
unless the French clergy^ who this day show so much 
symjpaihy for the French republic should settle them 
down by diat of holy water irrigations^ it might 
perhaps make the ground more fertile ? God ! knows 
we don't France has produced a great many emi- 
nent men of genius in all the ramifications of human 
intelligence .... This country of JJncle Sam has pro- 
duced ONE, especially, Franklin I put him in the scale 
weigh his merits and compare him to any of the great 

men of any country and draw your conclusions 

mine are drawn if Yankeedom should not, OYQv-weigh 
" overbalanced " them all, I would jump in the scales 
so that she could do it. 

When I began to write some of these sketches of my 
life I meant to relate only the most interesting inci- 
dents, but as I proceeded I found that I had omitted 
many and some I had entirely overlooked, forgotten, 



108 Afpknbik, 

and some very typical ones, connected with wisdom 
versus stupidity, and perhaps vice versa. Does not 
this expression sound odd, queer on my lips ! " eonfes- 
sionsf^^ It does if you take it to the letter^ and with 
its religious meaning, but that confession shall not be 
snatched from me by any priest of any denomination 
whatever, it will be between us, between the whole 
community, and if it chance not to meet your appro- 
bation, you need not give me the absolution, and I 
promise you that I shall not be angry with you for 
your intolerance, on condition you will not either bear 
me any malice for what I may say to clear my con- 
science, to have sinned in the eyes of some, but not in 
mine, for it may happen that what one of us calls virtue 
I may consider it as a venial vice. . . . Now that I 
have done my introductory prayer, let us begin : In 
1827 I was only between 19 and 20 years old, half 
between the two. I lived in one of the suburbs of 
Paris, within a few hundred yards of the city walls, 
intra muros (within the walls), but I boarded extra 
muros (outside the walls), so as not to pay double price 
for wine, when I drank any, for I did not care much 
for it at that time, but necessity compelled me not to, 
yet I had to do it on account of the water not agreeing 
with new comers. A bottle of wine that cost 16 cents 
in Paris cost only 8 cents outside owing to city duties, 
and when a man gets ^^ francs ($10) a month he can- 



Kecollections, 1827. 10[) 

not very well aflford to drink wine, but I had to do it 
and board mj^self, it was a question of hygiene and I 
could not afford to be sick ... 

Let us come to the jpsychologiG incident. I had a 
comrade 8 or 10 years my senior, not exactly a Parisian 
but born in the jurisdiction of Paris, he was a sort of 
philosoj>her ! as you will see. It was on what you call 
in English '' Good Friday." We went to our boarding 
house, where there were perhaps 30 or more people, 
all mechanics of different trades. We were the only 
two exceptions, in trade, and in principles; almost uni- 
formly every one had beef soup, and after soup (soup 
and a Frenchman are almost synonymous), boiled beef 
and vegetables at your option. One word before we 
go further. After we were all sat down and waiting 
for the waiters I gave a glance all over the company 
(I already began to study human kind) to see how all 
those philosophers were going to '^feed^^ — excuse me 
this word, it answers my purpose. I found that the 
majority ordered leef soup. I might say the whole. 
After soup the waiter asked us what we wanted. I 
don't know what he asked others. I had seen the soup 
served up. That was all I wanted for my edification, 
but I was mistaken. I had only seen one-half of the 
performance, the waiter came to me and asked me in a 

whisper what do you want? I told him heef and 
10 



110 Appendix. 

mashed potatoes. He brought it to me and at once I 
began to put half of my beef in my loaf of hread for 
my dinner, as it was the custom then, it cost less to 
buy it from the baker than from the restaurant, then 
I began to eat the balance left. When my comrade^ 
who stood opposite me, rose from, his chair^ crossed 
his arms over his breast and thrust in my face these 
" flowers of rhetoric " (we were florists and of course 
that was one of our weapons): " D . . . . savage ! douhle 
'brute ! ! have you been brought up with wild leasts ! 
in the woods where you ought to he and not among 
civilized ? people //.... to eat meat on such day !!.... 
After that complimentary apostrophe, allocution as you 
please, the utterance of which seemed to have exhausted 
all his faculties, he could hardly draw his breath, he 
was panting ! and I was suffocating ! with rage^ with 
all the most violent passions in a human body. At 
that minute, that second, from a roaring in the room 
you could have heard the flying of an atom, a silence 
like in a tomb ! So spontaneous had been i\\Q frantic 
allocution, every one was surprised and I 'w?^^ petrified ! 
as to say. If at that time the terrestrial globe had 
had a handle through it and I could have handled it 
as my spade I would have rolled it over all in exist- 
ence, crushing to dust every thing, then you would 
have had a cause to say to-day ^^ dust to dust! But I 
don't think 1 said any thing at all, unless internally 



Kecollections, 1827. Ill 

"Infernal stupid fools, beastly bipeds, you ought to 
eat hay instead of hreadP 

Much ado about nothing some one might say ! Yes 
it was something ! and the morality of it would have 
been this: If that beastly man had been able to 
strangle me as his disposition appeared to be, nobody 
would have interfered in my behalf, for in my honest 
conviction they had the same ideas more or less, for 
not one expressed his indignity of the insult to 7ne, 
and in such case you know the old saying '* who says 
nothing consents." 

To end that confession, I will tell all my sins in that 
fanatical strife was, that when that man addressed me 
I thought from his look that he was to leap over the 
table and take me by the neck. I had my hand on a 
decanter half full of water, and if he had jumped or 
turned round the table and touched me I would have 
smashed it on his head, unless he had been the strongest, 
and to-day, after over 64 years, I still believe nobody 
would have interfered, though probably none would 
have helped him, but 

Now, I would like to ask those who may have read 
the first part of my biography, what they think of that 
incident ''''eating boiled beef'' on a Good Friday^ or 
any other Friday, after other persons would have eaten 



112 Appendix. 

the essence of it f And then call that heef eater a 
doulle hrute, etc., and thinking he, the Beefojphagus 
will go to hell for the crime of having eaten what you 
had sucked^ and he who had absorbed the juice of that 
beef will go to Heaven ! Is not that a wonderfully 
pious action ? One can go to heaven cheaply. Probably 
there are some persons who would tell me that that was 
only an isolated case^ but unfortunately not^ it is the 
rule^ not the exception. Long before that, I had seen 
almost as bad in a different way. When, one, as /, 
have seen such acts of fanaticism^ in a city like 
Paris ! when this very day the French nation hesi- 
tates to have a separation of the State from that cleri- 
cal breed ! whose majority, to-day, would, if they had 
the power, proclaim a new " Saint Bartholomevj " of 
all who would not believe y that confession is an igno- 
minious — an infamous institution, to degrade human 
species .... to corrupt young people, especially the 
feminine sex. I wish that in this paper I am writing 
on I could with decency un7)eil your turpitudes, but 
we cannot dispose of a confessional as you do. We 
have to observe decency .... It makes my blood boil 
when I think there are men that teach you you will 
go to Hell in eating meat on certain days — or in not 
believing that they are the ministers of God ! O I 
Impostors 1 O ! French Philosophers ! ♦ 



Eecollections, 1S38. 113 



An incident in my life^ in 1838, in Astoria, Z. 7., 
iT. Y. — Expelled out of the railroad cars for want 
of ten cents change, with forty dollars hills of good 
money. 

lo March, 1838, I had been in the employ of Mr. 
Geo. Thorburn, of Kew York, on his place, at Astoria, 
since 1st of October, 1837, and bj that time I had not 
received one cent — having no need of money I had 
not asked for, as I had a few dollars in reserve, but to 
try my proficiency in writing English, for as speaking 
it tolerably I was backward. So I wrote to him that 
I should like a few dollars, if convenient. The very 
same day he sent me $40 in bank bills, all single dol- 
lar bills, and probably of forty different banks of New 
York State, but not of New York city. Those forty 
dollars were such dirty looking in appearance, that if 
they had been spread over the pavement in the street, 
I would not have stooped down to pick them up. 
True, I knew nothing about the money. The follow- 
ing day was a Sunday. I decided to go to New York, 
so I went to the Hell Gate ferry to cross the river, 
thence went to YorkviUe to take the steam cars to go 
to the city. Yorkville was the terminus of the rail- 
road. The tunnel between Yorkville and Harlem was 
not finished then. There was no station for the railroad, 
but close to the stairway to go down to get into the 
cars there was a saloon, or a tavern, and I went in, not 



114 Appendix. 

willing to wait in the open air, as it was drizzling, 
snowing and cold, but I thought it was not proper to 
stand in such place without taking something, so I 
asked for " a glass of heer,^'' only those four words. 
I must have pronounced them in a queer way, or the 
bar-tender was dull enough. Anyhow he took a small 
bottle (the contents of which did not look like beer to 
me) and filled up a large glass. I took the glass with 
one hand and handed a silver coin with the other. I for- 
got if it was 10 cents or more or less, I think it was 
Spanish or Mexican money. He took it and did not 
give me any change. I tasted the would-hQ-hQQV but I 
could not drink it. It was as bitter as Aloe to my 
taste, so I put my glass on the bar again, and all the 
time he looked at me but I did not say a word nor he 
either, but from his looh, if he had spoken^ I think he 
would have said : " What sort of a fool are you ? You 
ask for a drink, you pay for it and you do not drink it, 
nor say a word whether you find it bad or not. I would 
have asked but I could not manage to find words to 
ask him what sort of medicine he had given me. The 
train had arrived so I went down and got in the 
car. I do not think there was more than one person 
and myself in the car. In a few minutes the conductor 
came and asked me my fare without speaking, I could 
understand his pantomime, so I handed him one dollar 
bill of those dirty looking bills. He looked at it, shook 



EeCOL LECTIONS, 1838. 115 

bis head and stood looking at me with some impatience. 
I gave him another, then he said no good. I could 
understand that without an interpreter. I gave him 
another from the same bundle I had in my coat pocket. 
Same ceremony. He would not take it and began to 
wax mad and put his hand on Lay shoulder to turn me 
out, but I was not willing to go. It began to snow 
pretty heavy. I held the seat I was sitting on with 
one hand and with the other one I pulled my bundle 
of bills and I gave it to help himself, but he still held 
me and wanted to drag me out. I think he had suc- 
ceeded to push me a few yards but by that time the 
gentleman who was in the car took his arm from me. 
Then they began to discuss rather lively and quarrel. 
I could not understand what they said but I could 
understand the gestures of both, and that the gentle- 
man who interfered in my behalf was telling that man 
I was not a swindler, and that all those bills I had 
offered him were good. The result of that incident was 
I vfQwtfree. When we arrived, I think 28th street, I 
thanked the gentleman the best I could and went down 
to the post-office to see if I had a letter from France that 
I expected. A clerk who talked French and English 
told me there were two. He handed them to me. I 
took them and gave him one of those dollars. He 
looked at it and told me " I cannot take that bill. Why ? 
I said is it bad ? No it is good, but we do not take 



116 Appendix. 

any bank bill unless Nexo Yorlc city bills or silver. 
He took back my two letters and gave me my dollar. 
Then I said what shall I do. "Well he said go to that 
Jew clothing-store and buy a vest or any thing else, 
give your bills and they will give 3^ou change. I told 
him I wanted nothing at all. Well go into the tavern 
close by and take a glass of heer. The devil with the 
heer. I thought of the glass I had had at Yorkville, 
but as I could not get change any other way 1 did take 
it and got the change of my dollar. The change ivas 
about as hright as the bills, some six cents, one shilling. 
That most of them looked like little rounds of tin. 
You could hardly see any thing on them so much worn 
out by long handling. The same night when I got back 
to Astoria I wrote again to Mr. Thorburn to whom I 
recounted my trouble. He told me to send back the 
money (bills) and he would send me silver American 
coin. 

He did not send me silver, but quite new hanh hills 
of New York city. But, as the proverb has it " a burnt 
child dreads the fire," I felt in doubt, and I was much 
puzzled where to go to test their intrinsic value. There 
was only one grocery in the village, as far as I knew, 
and I did not want to buy any thing at all. I might 
have asked for a glass of beer, but I had enough of it. 
I was afraid it would be from the same brewery I 



Eecollections, 1838. 117 

drank at Yorkville, so I asked for a candle ! A can- 
dle ? Yes. You may laugh, for when I got out of 
the store, going back to my lodging, I laughed myself 
at my shrewdness ! WQburned oil, and I had no need 
of it. I laughed a great deal more than all those who 
may read this silly story will, for after lighting my 
flanibeau I took a book to read, to see if it was good 
tallow or wax, and the first thing I read, w^as, a story 
of a fellow of my school who went to a dry good store 
and walked from one end to the other of the store, 
when one of the clerks asked him what he wanted ? 
! nothing, he said, I only wanted to see the store 
keeper^ s daughter, and I do not see her, is she gone 
out ? The story did not say if he wanted to buy her, 
as I had done, with my candle .... But that incident of 
being turned out of railroad cars for want of ten cents, 
when I had forty dollars in my pocket, did not give 
me a very good opinion of American money, for many 
years later the country was literally overflooded with 
such dirty money, and to help it, quantities of those 
bills counterfeited. When you went in a store to buy 
for sixpence, if you had no small change to pay for, 
you had to wait ten or fifteen minutes, until the store- 
keeper had looked in a sort of detector to see if your 
money was good. That was not the Golden Age ! ! 



11 y Appendix. 

Specimen of Brutality. 
Speaking of grandeur versus littleness, reminds me 
of a circumstance. In 1841, three countrymen of 
mine, two living in New York, and one in Albany, 
came to pay me a visit in Astoria. One of them, a 
splendid, tall looking man (physically speaking) one of 
the debris of the Waterloo's cataclysm of blood, asked 
me if I was a married man ? I answered affirmatively. 
Married to an American lady or a French one ? I re- 
plied an Enghsh one. Enghsh ? Yes ! Well he said 
with a wry face, she loses seventy-five per cent in my 
estimation ! ! Sir, I believe you, since you say so, but 
I^ in my appreciation of your high stature, and nar- 
row-minded idea, I think .... that you .... are an ass ! 
He changed color at hearing that apostrophe, and made 
a motion of his right arm, as I made of my right foot 
*' to shake the kinkles out o' back an' leg, an o' rack my 
face off from 2.filip, I thought he was going to adminis- 
ter me. But suddenly one of his friends, the Albanian, 
another debris of the catastrophe of Waterloo, threw 
his arms across the body of that appraiser of a woman 
he had never seen, and of a man he saw for the first 
time, and told him : Rioux ! (I think it was his name) 
it is a shame for you to insult a man, and a woman you 
have never seen, and do not know any thing about him 
or her. If you touch him you will have to knock me 
down first, and be sorry after. And he would have 



Recollections, 1841. 119 

been sorry, for my foot and leg were braced to give 
him a filip on his lower abdomen. I had no other 
weapon, and I could not grapple with such a colossus. 
His weight alone could have crushed me, although, I 
was not laTYie at that time. But " all is well that ends 
well." Only I should like to make some comment- 
aries on such a man — one of those satellites of the 
U7icle of his nephew^ brave on the battle-field, but, 
otherwise, most of the time reasoning as a horse ! ! 
Can you understand that illogical, semi-brute express- 
ing himself against a woman, who had more sense in 
her fingers (queer comparison, but it suits my mean- 
ing) than he had in his whole individual, to hate any 
one, because born in a certain country ! That man 
ought to have admired the English for he had seen 
them face to face on that '^ Abattoir ! of human 
hodies, Waterloo ! If that man had had a grain of com- 
mon sense he would have looked with respect — with 
profound admiration^ at the sight of " Wellington,'^ 
surrounded or with his aides-de-camp. Lords Hill and 
Gordon, already killed : " General, if you expose 
yourself to he hilled, what shall we do ? As / do — to 
he hilled ! was his answer. A grand, a nohle answer ! ! 
For me that day Wellington was greater than Napo- 
leon. I shall not qualify this last — decency forbids 
me, , . , 



120 Appendix. 

But, here, I cannot refrain from making reflections 
on the blindness, prejudices, irrational insane ideas of 
nation against nation. Why those hatred, inveterate 
feelings between two nations, France and England, 
especially ? . . . . Who will answer those arduous ques- 
tions? JN^either of them collectively ! " L' Amour propre 
Frangais " on one side, and the " English Pride " on 
the other side, and hoth together, will, I am afraid, pre- 
vent forever an union between them. That " amour 
propre Fran9ais," that I incline to render it, by 
"Amour sale — hete — dirty ^ foolish^ and the English 
pride by English " arrant nonsensicalness^^ are 
monstrous anomalies, which ought to make hoth hlush 
with shame, if they should take the thing in earnest 
consideration ? Inasmuch as I have the profound con- 
viction that hoth, individually, not collectively, unfor- 
tunately have among them, men who think for them- 
selves, who have admiration for each other nation, but 
will not confess it — not to the ears of a priest. I do 
not want such a confession. I wish it " Coram in ore 
omnibus orhe^^ ", In face of the whole world ! " 

If these two nations would clasp hands with each 
other " sans arriere pensee," " without any " moral 
restrictions." They, even to-day, at the dawn of the 
twentieth century ! they could have the pre-eminence 
over the whole of Europe I if not more That is 



E-fiCOLLECTlONS, 1831-37. 121 

my ardent wish, and I would like to see it before I 
take my exit. . . .But what seas of difficulties in the 
way, impediments of all sorts : difference of language, 
foremost, religious creed next, and probably, as bad, if 
not worse, rivalry, jealousies among all classes of so- 
ciety, etc., etc .... I think, from the reflections I make 
in sketching that dream, it will be as well for me to 
take my exit as soon as the doors will be open and not 
waste my illusions, though they do not cost me much, 
yet it is a pity not. . . .not to see that dream a reality 
.... These illusions of mine in reference to an union 
between France and England have been nursed up in 
my bosom for the last fifty years, and more ! but the 

prospect is that I shall die with them unrealized it 

is a pity ! ! 

L. M. 

In April, 1831, as I was going to leave Paris, I had 
omitted to relate the particulars of my engagement, 
which I had not thought proper to mention, but since 
I have found it necessary to give an adequate idea of 
the growing of my principles in religion, politics, moral, 
intellectual affairs, etc. The man of whom I have 
spoken as sl ferocious royalist that wanted to civilize 
people with volleys of musketry to prevent the spread- 
ing of democratic principles, had recommended me to 

a gentleman living in Paris most of the time, except 3 
11 



122 Appendix. 

or 4 months in Autumn, who wanted a gardener for his 
mother. I went to see him, and after a little talk, 
about wages only, for that man who would have shot 
me in the street, had told him to hire me with his eyes 
shut, closed^ that I was all right. As he objected to 
pay me what I asked, I told him I would take what 
he used to pay, but if after one or two months he found 
I was worth more he would pay me what I had asked. 
At the end of the month his mother paid me what I 
had stipulated. We had all settled about the day I 
would leave Paris. When I began to think I had for- 
gotten to ask him if his mother was a religious woman ? 
What makes you ask such a question, he said. I ask 
that because I know folks in the country are fond of 
going to church, and I am not ! and that probably your 
mother might require me to go. Oh, yes ! he said, 
she is very strict for that. All right she does what 
suits her and I want the same privilege. Oh what a 
fool you are; I don't care for religion, any more 
than you do, but to please her I do it. It is all right 
for you, she is your mother^ but she is not mine ! you 
understand? You act hypocrisy to please her, but I 
did not wish to do so for my own mother. Well he 
said I find it is of no use to talk any more about it, but 
I am sorry. Your appearance, your ways of talking 
please me, but I see you are determined. Well, I told 
him I am as sorry as you are, and more so, for 1 need 



Recollections, 1831-37. 123 

employment and you can do without me. I think of 
one thing, and if you approve it and if your mother 
sanctions it I will go immediately. Write to your 
mother, tell her I am a Protestant^ if she does not ob- 
ject all is settled. Good ! you have a luminous idea. 
I see that you have more than one string to your bow. 
I will write her and I have not the least doubt she will 
accept that proposition, when I will tell her that you 
suit me. So it was all right — no it was not for a 
sudden idea struck me that perhaps when I would be 
there among those people, who worshipped a different 
God from mine, they would drive me away, stone me, 
make a martyr of me, and I have not the ambition to 
see my name in a martyrology ; as I have already 
declined to be a simple saint ! All the time I was 
reciting that tirade he gravely looked at me then burst 
with loud laughing. Oh no ! they won't do that, they 
are not as fanatic as that, you may depend upon it. 
On the contrary the few Protestants there are more 
respected than a great many orthodox sectarians ; you 
may go safely, so I went, but after I had been there 
a few days they tried to submit me at the diet of 
spinage on Fridays and Saturdays. I winced at that 
violation of our convention, signed by both parties, 
etc., etc. I had a good deal of fun and occasionally I 
waxed mad, but I soon got over it, especially when 
the gentleman who had engaged me was present. We 



124 Applndix. 

had a good deal of fun with religious farces. We even 
nade alterations in the calendar. We used to call 
Fridays and Saturdays " the first and the second days of 
spinages, the other days of fast through the year extra 
spinage day. So far as that we agreed but no farther. 
He was unprincipled, he was what we generally call a 
good fellow ! in a restrictive sense. A handsome look- 
ing man, high stature. During the Peninsular Spanish 
war he had been an aide-de-camp of General Duke of 
Raguse, then at the time I speak of\\Q, was living on a 
"pension from an uncle, a French general, and some 
other little scraps. When talking politics if you asked 
him to what party he belonged he answered that he 
leaned on the " woman bosom." He had been a Bona- 
partiste of course, and he was then a very lukewarm 
Philippist, King Louis Philippe. On the subject of 
woman we often wrangled with animation. He was 
unscrupulous^ even dissolute, no respect for them, not 
even for his own mother, for several times I assisted at 
some domestic quarrel between them (mother and son), 
and I had to interfere in such a way that once he told 
me : You ! if you were not in my mother's house I 

would What would you do?? compel me to 

swallow your rusted swords, jour panoply (he had one 
in a room under mine). You know very well that 
those antiquities do 7iot scare me more than the pro- 
prietor of them! Do you not recollect lately when 



Kecollections, 1831-37. 125 

I have saved yoii from hilling your servant or ber 
ing killed yourself by him ? Do you not see yet the 
hut end of that musket in my hand swinging over your 
head and that of y-our drunhen valet ? Did I look like 
one afraid of you ? " Baron ! out of fashion ? (he 
was called a Baron and the mother a Baroness). He 
and that man had a difficulty. The servant was drunk 
and insulted him without any reason whatever. He 
was sitting eating his dinner when the fellow, drunTc^ 
went to him and took him by the arm and abusing him. 
Then the insulted man took a carving knife to stab him, 
but the fellow was a powerfully strong man^ stopped 
his arm but could not snatch the knife from him then. 
I was coming from my room when I saw all the women 
in the house screaming in a terrific manner. By that 
time they had got out of the dining rooui and where 
in a large kitchen where there was a large table 10 or 
12 or more feet long and 6 inches thick, running up to 
a mantle piece over which were 2 or 3 fowling pieces. 
I could not separate them, 1 would have been crushed 
between them, both strong men. I jumped on the 
table, took one of the muskets by the barrel. They 
were wrestling at the end of the table close by me ; 
then I shouted if any one of you move one inch either 
way I smash his head ! I had no looking glass to see 
how I looked, but all the women told me after, that I 
looked like a demon^ that my eyes were protruding out 



126 Appendix. 

of my sockets. All I can tell is that they both looked 
at me. They were still grappling, and I still with my 
musket in my hand. Then for a second or two a dead 
silence, no screaming. Then I said you Mr. Baron, 
you are a coward to take a knife against a drunhen 
man unconscious., and you, the servant, you are a hriUe ! 
Get out this moment and you give me your knife and 
go and finish your dinner if you can . . . .both went out 
quietly, in appearance. The old mother took me in 
her arms, and the other women. Some of them kissed 
me. I was a hero, but I felt a little uneasy about my 
drunken fellow, but I soon found he was no longer 
drunk. He was quiet when sober, and instead of quar- 
reling with me as I thought he would he thanhed me for 
my intervention. "What made me so terribly mad in that 
affray is that man had got drunk in my company. We 
had been in a village feast where he drank with every 
body, and I was talking and also drinking as a pretext 
to observe the company, good people enough, that en- 
joyed perhaps half a dozen times in the course of the 
year, and toiled hard and lived about the same the 359 
other days. 

Now let us go back to our Baron, and his panoply. 
The day after that *' Brutum fulmen," " Harmless 
thunderbolt," he came to me and told me : Louis ! I 
know you were not afraid of me, though you were 



Recollections, 1831-37. 127 

tremhling^ bat I kne;v it was not fear, but choler, 
anger, wrath. If I had touched 3-011 what would you 
have done ? Please do not ask me such a question, I 
cannot tell. Yes, I understand that, but I wish to 
know for my own edification. Well, if you had 
touched me seriously, with the idea to hurt me you 
would have had to hill me or disabled me on the spot, 
or else exchange my conditions for you to be Tcilled or 
unable to defend yourself. Then I would have been 
sorry forever. Well, he said, all is over, and I hope it 
will not happen any more. Once in a while a quarrel 
occurred between him and his mother, and I was al- 
ways mixed in the contest as an arbitrator. I, most of 
the time, inclined on the side of the mother. But, in 
my conscience, after over sixty years, I am obliged to 
say that neither were saints. Yet both treated me 
well, the mother especially, notwithstanding her bigot- 
ism aud venial weakness, I had sympathy for her. 
Often when I came from my herborization loaded with 
plants, she came and asked me what I had found new 
during the whole day, from Z A. J!/, to 4 or 5 P. M, 
Have you been all that time looking for plants ? Yes, 
Madame! Well, she said, you have modified your 
love inclinations. Don't you recollect the first day" 
you came here from Paris you went in the garden with 
one of my young servants to show you the topography 
of the place, and the first thing you did you kissed 



128 Appendix. 

her several times ! Don't you recollect, I upbraided 
jou for having done so, and jou asked me who had 
told me so. I told you some folks working in the 
vineyards od the bills culminatiDg the garden had 
seen you, and you answered me as if you had achieved 
a great feat — that you had done so and would do 
it again as soon as you would have a chance, if she 
would permit you. Is it so ? Well, Madame, then I 
wanted to flirt ; to " woo in naturalihx(jS^^ and to-day 
I do love platonically. I try to learn the theory of 
expressions proper to express my love when I shall 
find the person that shall inspire me. Love I as I un- 
derstand it ... . until then, I will love the plants, and 
both together. When coming home this afternoon, I 
was tired, and I found a fine spot under an elm tree, 
not far from the spot where your clear sighted folks 
had seen me kissing that young girl. I laid down 
under that tree, and I have learned half of the verb 
amo ! to love. When I went out at that time I had 
always my latin grammar in my pocket, so as not to 
lose any time in resting my legs. 

Once in a while we had little squalls about news- 
papers. Whenever there were some bitter articles in 
the Republican papers about the government, or any 
thing that indicated that democracy was progressing 
she would cut it off before she gave it to me. She had 



Kecollections, 1831-37. 129 

a conservative and Royalist paper. So I told her : If 
you do not give it to me as it comes, I will get a Re- 
publican paper. So I did, and that vexed her con- 
siderably. I continued to be protestant in my own 
way. 

She did not helieve I was, but she had to act as if 
she had, she had to have the appearance, and she cared 
for me and she treated me well, and so her son did, 
also. Once in a while we had a row about my giving 
meat on Friday to some of her folks who were eating 
at the same table as I did. One day I had a dish of 
several squabs (young pigeons) when all the rest, men 
and women were eating fricasee of heans or some- 
thing of that sort, and cheese, etc. Among them were 
two young men, working with me in the garden, that 
would not object to eat some pigeons. I offered them, 
but they hesitated, but I did not. I said : Do you 
want any ? I took one and cut it in two, and gave 
each one one-half. They hardly began when the old 
lady came and saw them. She did not say any thing be- 
cause she was afraid of a storm^ but sometime after she 
came to see me in the greenhouse, and she said : Mr. 
Gardener, or Louis, she called me so when she was of 
good humor, and she was so notwithstanding the distri- 
bution of pigeons, she said : I do not object you to 
eat meat on Friday, but I do not want you to give any 



130 Appendix. 

to my folks. It is enough that I have to pay to the 
Pope a disj>ens6 for my son and you ! Well, Madame, 
I think you might save that money, for I am willing 
to take the whole responsibility for all of us, and more^ 
Well, that is all right, for you, but I must be respon- 
sible — I have my soul to save .... do you understand, 
paying the Pope to eat pigeons ?!!.... What suolime 
thing faith is ! Nothing equal, except stupidity. I 
do not know if she has saved her soul. Nobody can 
know that, but if she did not it was not for lack of 
credulity, for she would swallow any thing the priests 
would tell her. I recollect once, a tall, swarthy fellow, 
just (he said) coming from the Holy Land with splin- 
ters of the wood of the " Holy Cross," and something 
rarer yet : some bones of Saint Yincent, the saint 
venerated by the " vine dressers,'^^ probably because he 
was a liberal consumer of their produce ! ? I do not 
affirm, I only ask the question. He (the discoverer of 
traps to catch the simple-hearted, with an iron-clad 
/aith, managed, with the aid of co-swindlers^ to per- 
suade her to get some and have them enshrined. She 
did so ! and I understood that it cost her 2,000 francs 
($400), at a time she was so hard up that she could not 
pay me on my salary $20. I wanted to go to Paris . . 
to see the philosophers — -drinkers of essence of beef, 
but not eating the meat for fear of losing their souls ! ! 
O ! stupiditas stupiditarum ! O, God !!.... have mercy 



Kecollections, 1831-37. 131 

upon them ! they deserve. . . .to inherit the kingdom 
of Heaven and eat hay .... 

To finish with this good hearted woman, and the 
priest {of whom, I loish to he jplainly understood, I 
do not include the whole of them, for there are a great 
number worthy of our admiration, whether beHevers 
or unbelievers, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Mahome- 
dan — charity, philanthropy, exist everywhere. Virtues 
are cosmopolitan as are vices. I do not hate men, 
priests or others, / hate the principles, the institu- 
tions that have a tendency to deprive humanity of 

their common sense., judgment, reason ) I 

must tell you something that will astound you * 
A young "Abbe" ''Abbot" not ordained as a priest 
yet, had received hospitality from that lady, he 
being sickly and poor, had been prescribed by doc- 
tors to live in the country for his health, which was 
frail indeed, but he had a great deal of energy, 
was quick in his movements and wonderfully intel- 
ligent, impulsive, passionate to excess, but whose 
senses, judgment, had been vitiated by that clerical 
mode of torturing one's moral and mental faculties, 
trying to make you believe that bladders are lanterns, 
gas lamps, etc ... . We had a billiard table on the 
place, but nobody to play with him except the old lady, 
who could not stand round the billiard table more than 



132 Appendix. 

a few minutes and she was out of breath, then she 
send for me. He had never held a cue in his hfe, but 
in less than half a day he could handle it as well as I 
did my spade, but of course he was apt to miss a ball 
and that made him nervous. He wore a sort of tea 
Gwp saucer cap that he took off, threw it on the floor 
and trampled it over and said : Shall I ever be able to 
play and heat you? I replied, not in dancing on your 
cap. In that very moment I had to leave him. He 
looked at me with consternation. Will you not come 
back ? I told him I would try, but I did not. I had 
something to do that prevented me. He was in terri- 
ble agitation. Will you play again to-morrow ? I may 
possibly, but I have some thing to do. I can't play all 

the time. What do you care Mrs my priestified 

lady had told him that I would, that may be but 

no but you must, the lady was just coming and both of 
them coaxed me so I did play longer than I wished. 
I did not dislike it, but I did not want to play by the 
day. When he could make a carombol he was a happy 
man, but when he missed it he was like the " D . . . . in 
a holy water pot." He had hecome so passionately 
fond of playing that he would have spent the whole 
day without eating, but always furious when he missed 
a ball. One day he got so excited that I told him, 
Monsieur FAbbe ! it is not becoming for a man of 



Recollections, 1831-37. 133 

your character, a Christian moralizer, to behave as you 
do, and if you continue I shall have to quit your com- 
pany. But I shall not mind it, if every time you get 
fits of impatience you will express your mortifications 
in Latin ; he could do it as fluently as in French. 
Well, he said, I will do it, but as a compensation you 
will teach me how I could beat you ! I can not do that. 
I shall give you a chance to do it, but I can not demon- 
strate to you technically. I am not expert enough in 
that line. I have always been very superficial in every 
thing except in raising plants from cuttings ov procre- 
ating defenders for my adopted country .... One 
day he got so exasperated at my success in playing that 
an idea got into my head, partly for fun, partly to give 
him a lesson of Christian humility, but mostly to find 
out if he knew any thing of Voltaire's writings, that 
nightmare of the clerical progeny. He had got in such 
a passion when missing a carombol, that at once I 
picked up his cap, handed it to him, and with all the 
dignity I could assume I recited to him those four 
verses of Voltaire (tragedy of Mahomet): 

* * Ne sais tu pas encore, homme f aible et superbe, 
' * Que I'insecte insensible enseveli sous I'herbe, 
"Et I'aigle imperieux qui plane en haut du ciel 
"Rentrent dans le neant aux yeux de I'eternel ! 



12 



134 Appendix. 

Knowest thou not yet, man weak and haiiglity, 
That the insensible insect, enshrouded under the sod, 

And the imperious eagle that soars to heaven lofty, 
Re-enter into chaos in the eyes of Godl 

When he saw my countenance, heard my scanned 
declamation, he threw his cue across the billiards, and 
said : What is that ? Who has written those verses 
— they are admirable! I responded with a studied 
calmness : Voltaire ! ! No ! he said, that wretch has 
never written such sublime expressions. He has, Mon- 
sieur PAbbe ! or / lie^ and you are a two legged ass ! 
But you are not an ass, nor do Ilie^ and Voltaire is a 
terrestrial genius. He saw. He had seen more of God 
in his cabinet than all your theologians have ever seen in 
the pulpit, or from the pulpit. . . .1 have faith in your 
frankness, but I cannot believe that a miscreant like 
him could have had such admiration of God and ex- 
pressed it in such a noble style. Let us see no 
more of your expression — miscreancy. He had no 
faith in your nonsenses^ and you, have too much in 
your theologians, in ahsitrdo. If I show you those 
verses, printed half a century ago, will you believe it ? 
I did not wait for his answer, but I went for the 
volume containing the verses. He read them, and some 
few more. Then looked on the title page of the book 
to see if there were no tricks, put his hand on his fore- 
head, tucked up his hair and involuntarily said: 



Kecollections, 1831-37. 135 

^^Sacredie ! — je n'aurais pas cru!'^ — "I would not 
have believed it." .... Sacredie, on the lips of a Catholic 
priest, is an eujpheinism for damned, damnation, etc. 
He looked like a dog that had been flogged. I said 
no more but young man (I was, perhaps, a few months 
older than he was), it is time to go to bed. No, he 
said, we have time enough, and if you do not wish 
to play any more, let us go in the parlor. We shall 
talk about plants, of which 1 know absolutely nothing 
— those cryptogamic minute plants you showed once 
on the trunk of that heach tree, where you quoted that 

verse of Yirgil : ( " O Tityre patulce recubans 

sub tegmine fagi^'' under the shade of that beech tree? 
only we were standing up, while Yirgil's shepherd was 
reclining), have interested me much — they have in- 
fused in me the desire to know more. We went in the 
parlor, but we did not talk long about plants, and the 
conversation soon crept in that rather hollow science^ 
theology . It was about 7 o/* 8 p.m. when we went, and 
when we quitted it was 4 o'clock^ a.m. That parlor was 
a room perhaps twenty or twenty-five feet square, with 
ceilings fourteen feet high, and only a wood fire of 
logs, eight or ten or more inches in diameter, that 
roasted us in front, and we were chilled behind. It 
was in October or November — I am not sure — ^but it 
was not warm. The heat of our polemics kept us from 
shivering. It was about 11 d clock when our lady sent 



136 Appendix. 

her maid to quench the fire, dreading we should quarrel. 
She knew our temper, and she acted aecordinglj. How- 
ever, she was disappointed. We both saw her, the 
maid, breaking the logs, half burnt, and burying them 
in the ashes. We were so excited that neither one of 
us would say a word to stop her — perhaps she would 
not have paid an attention because she had been ordered 
to do it, volens nolens. So we remained as I have said 
until 4 a. m. When we parted he told me Mr. Louis^ 
some other day we shall resume our conference. I 
want to convince you ! Well if that is your aim you 
will be deceived. You ought to know it by to-night's 
experience. You have acknowledged twice that you 
were touched, and you did not touch me once. Be- 
cause you are too obstinate. No ! ! but because your 
arguments are too dull. Your best arguments were 
the Holy Scriptures ! Who has written these 
apocryphal books ? the logicians of the Apocalypse f 
This is another authority which is as clear as a hottle 
of ink .... Good night ! Bonne nuit ! Au revoir ! 
We met the following day. I mean at T or 8 o'clock 
in the morning of that day. The following day he had 
to rejoin his regiment in his harrach seminary at 
Reims, where I saw him once more in the " grand 
seminary ^^ where he was Professor of Theology. We 
began an argument but on such a high diapason that he 
suddenly told me we must part. Here the walls have 



Kecollections, 1831-37. 137 

ears! So we shook hands and he ran away saying 
Adieu ! adieu ! in aeternum ! I repeated the phrase, 
and . . . After I reached here (America) I wrote to 
him once. He answered me, but he had misunderstood 
me in some remarks I had made the first Sunday I was 
in New York, about the multitude of religious creeds 
and what I had seen in three different churches I had 
visited, that he had concluded that I gave i\iQ promi- 
nence to the Cath .... His answer was such, that I 
felt so indignant, I never wrote him again, his tdtra- 
montanism had broken all the ties of sympathy between 
us. I suppose he had understood when I was in France 
that my Protestantism was only platonic. It was and 
it was not. I am according to my notions a Protestant 
as ever. I jprotest against what does not agree with 
my ideas, my conscience, but 1 do it silently. I try 
not to hurt any body's feelings. I let every one do as 
they please, and I wish to enjoy the same privilege. 
Even in my own family, where I ought to have some- 
thing to say, I let every one of my children do as they 
please in spiritual affairs. I have tried, I try yet to 
inculcate in them some principles of good behavior, hon- 
esty, tolerance, friendly relations with every one worthy 
of having their associations cultivated! Only one 
thing I shall never tolerate : " Auricular confession ^^"^ 
for me one of- the greatest social evils at least for the 
30 first years of my life. Now I hear notliing of it. 



138 Appendix. 

Again, I want to be understood that 1 do not think 
that any one going to confess is wrong, not at all. I 
firmly believe that there are immense quantities of 
people professing that creed that are sincere, but the 
exceptions do not alter the rule .... I do not know how 
long I have to vegetate on this globe, but as long as I 
do I shall — it will be as it has been since I have been 
able to think for myself. Respecting the religious and 
political opinions of every one whoever they may be, 
every one of us is responsible for one's deeds before 
the Eternal ! 



ELUCIDATION SOLICITED. 



A lady amateur — scrutinizer of genesis affairs, has 
asked me if I would be willing to give the initial 
particulars of mj first sight of that " Phanerogyne," 
in Astoria, in 1840. I have replied in the affirmative 
that I would do it with a vivid pleasure, for it will 
give me a regain of those celestial sensations I have 
expeiienced in that providential circumstance. Even 
to-day, the mere souvenir of it makes me feel as if my 
heart was melting in a sea of voluptuousness ! 

The first glimpse I had of that cryptogamous speci- 
men of vegetation, was through (rather a dim light) the 
front sashes of a greenhouse. She, as now, I know 
the sex which 1 did not then, whether it was dioecious, 
hermaphrodite, or unisexual. She was walking in the 
carriage road of the site we were on, looking on each 
side, in the borders, to see the flowers. She seemed to 
be afraid — of what I could not tell ; I found it after. 
It was that "Albany Dutchman " that had been de- 
picted to her as a good intelligent fellow enough, but, 



140 Appendix. 

an awful radical or red republican who would kill his 
man ! as he would a fly, etc., etc. — any qualification 
of that sort. 

My second look at her, always through the glazed 
sashes, brought to ray mind that rule of Latin and 
French grammar : " G-allus escam quserens, margaritam 
reperit," anglice, "A cock searching for food, found a 
pearl ! " That which I translated off-hand in my mind, 
^' Gallina, a hen, searching for flowers, found " — an 
admirer, a lover, or a husband ! You see that I did 
not lack presumption. I confess it now, but I would 
not have done it then, though, shortly after, two or 
three days later, when we came in contact, I felt the 
same sensation, ambition to possess her, but I did not 
express it ; although I have always been somewhat apt 
to blunder I did not in that instance. I kept my dig- 
nity though, according to the friendly reports at 
that time, I could or would hill a man^ but at the 
same time I would not have slighted a woman. In 
that first encounter, we had very nearly collidedj. 
She was turning round a building to see me, and I was 
coming in the opposite direction, walking fast, when 
we almost fell in each other's aruis, or at least face to 
face. Was not that a strange coincidence ? We both 
looked at each other, as you may fancy, with surprise ! 
for neither of us were prepared to such a sudden en- 



Elucidation. 141 

counter. In a few seconds we had recovered our wits. 
Then she told me : Mr. Louis, (that was my appella- 
tion there) 1 wanted to see you, to ask you if you would 
sell me a flower stem of tuberose .... I shall not tell 

you what I answered You may say whatever 

you please. I have written the dots, you may write 
the Is, just to suit you. You may guess, as I do when 
I am in doubt. But I am willing to tell you that : 
We had a long conversation in French. My English 
would not have been adequate to express all I had not 
on baud, but in my heart. I suppose you might wish 
to know what we said to each other. I wish I could, 
but it is impossible for me to tell you now, nor imme- 
diately after, except we talked, perhaps, over an hour, 
and we might have talked three or four, or more, but 
she was called and warned that if she should delay any 
longer she would miss the boat coming from Flushing, 
to go to New York, then to Albany. I did not know 
where to ; it is after, I found it. On reflection, I 
think we talked on American, English, French morals 
theatrical performances, practical theology, Tuheros- 
ology, and many other topics profane and religious, in 
logy or logics, etc. All I recollect perfectly well is 
that we understood each other almost by intuition. 
The sequel has proved it, for half a century, and two 
months strictly speaking, though two weeks less in 
reality. " Man proposes ! God disposes !".... Human 



142 ' Appendix. 

kind progress more or less successfully. The laws of 
Nature remain as God created them — unchangeahley 
notwithstanding what may be our desires — our wishes 
to have rain when too dry, or dry when too wet .... 

Let me remember; if I have not omitted some details 
in my narrative of our henceforth discovery of that in- 
dividuality now belonging to the community as far as 
the name is concerned, as to the possession, Nihil! 
The thing discovered remains to the Finder ! 

O ! I remember now, the dread of that Mr. Louis 
came from the folks who gave the " dearly paid for 
hospitality " to Miss Jackson and her Albany friends. 
It seems that after meals, and from taking sea baths, 
the conversation ran on that demagogue ! I have never 
been and never will, but even if I had been I deserved 
some regards from those people who were continually 
begging of me a loaf of bread, butter, etc., when shorty 
and that was the rule, short of bread and butter, and 
shorter of decency, and those loaves were never re- 
turned. The head of that family was an ex — of some 
sort of French Nobility. He styled himself — I forget 
— but his name was a sort of Latin " Servatius,'' that 
my employer, Mr. George Thorburn, called '^ Starva- 
tion ! " — a well applied name, for often he lived on 
Lobsters he caught in the Hell Gate waters, and the 
loaves of bread and oil and vinegar he extorted from my 



Elucidation. 143 

housekeeper, who, she told me, had not the will to re- 
fuse his poor wife and children, half starved ; hence the 
appellation . . . . " Starvation ! ! " Not being able or 
willing to reciprocate our compassion he thought that 
some calumnies, well contrived, would answer to repre- 
sent me as a hero of abjections in the eyes of his board- 
ers, who had temporarily broken his forced vigils, for 
as long as they were with him he had enough to eat, and 
after meals to help his digestion and make my panegyric 
he told them, that Mr. Louis was a d. ... of a fellow when 
talking politics, that " The Declaration of the Rights of 
Man " was my hihle, that I thought a man hke me 
was equal to any nobleman, according to merits, and 
such Utopias. That when I left France I had a wife 
and several children. I wondered he did not attribute 
me as many as the wise King Solomon had ; it is true 
that he could not very well do that — the antithesis 
would have been too metaphorical from a king to a 
demagogue, and especially to make it swallow, to a pro- 
fessor of French at the Military Academy of West 
Point, with whom I had had a long conversation a few 
days before, who, I understood after, told that apolo- 
gist of my virtues, that from our conversation he had 
had no inductions that I was such a diabolical man as he 
depicted me, but quite the contrary, and asked him 
who had given him such information, unless I had 
myself, and that was not very likely. Later he told 



14i ArrENDix. 

me that he had no idea that man was so contemptible, 
that he belonged to a good family, etc. However, all 
those calumnies did not hurt me, on the contrary, their 
exaggeration confirmed these people, and Miss Jack- 
son, my future wife, that all those reports were to hurt 
me, out of spite because I would not associate with 
them, for some motives that I cannot explain here in 
a decent manner. The conclusion of all that was I 
got rid of their importunities, and shortly after they 
had to leave the place, not being able to pay their rent. 

I suppose that the lady who has solicited the initial 
of the particulars of my prowesses — doings in that ec- 
centric love affair has been satisfied, that I have men- 
tioned faithfully the whole incidents ? I have, so far, 
as the departure from Astoria of Miss Jackson, and 
her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Molinard of Albany goes, 
but no farther. 

The whole and the most important object at stake : 
The fowling of the bird, was only in its incipiency. I 
had only seen the colors of her feathers and the out- 
lines of the extremities of her wings, at rest, not flying. 
Considerable time elapsed before I could have her 
caged. I had to use some substitute for bird's lime to 
daub her wings to keep her from flying off, though I 
had not the slightest idea she would do it. Yet in one 
instance, unaware^ unconscious^ she made an attempt 



Elucidation. 145 

to know what sort of a bird catcher I was, in writing 
me a letter, so untimely^ so indifscreetly . that I almost 
gave lip the chase, the bird, the cage and all, and more. 
.... Had any body seen me then, when I got the in- 
timation of that irruption would have thought I was 
to give up the soul. It was, as if one had taken my 
heart — with a pair of nippers to pull my heart out of 

my body However, I did not give up any thing at 

all, but notwithstanding my love — some one will say 
that I was not in love, or else I would not have spoken 
as I did — I was in love^ I have heen^ and I am yet, 
retrospectively 2Ln6. jpermanently as long as Hive, yet at 
that moment, 1 clung to my dignity, my love despised^ 
call it what you please. . . .K. B. — I was in Astoria, 
and she was at Albany. Had we been both present 
that would have been only a lovers^ quarrel, which is 
a condiment to flavor the thing !!....! wrote a letter — 
two letters. 1 have them yet, with her answers, also, 
in which 1 fulminated, exhausted all the choicest 
flowers of my rhetoric, to convince her, and I did con- 
vince her deeply, so deeply that she answered me at 
once, to come to Albany, that we could never under- 
stand each other by correspondence, that she could 
not tell what she felt, by writing, but she would make 
verbally, a confession that would deserve my absolu- 
tion without the confession, but that she expected a 

reciprocity of generosity for her venial sin .... 
13 



14:6 Appendix. 

Two weeks later than the above incident we were, 
as I now fancy, were Adam and Eve, after the lunch 
of the forbidden apple, drinking the sweet sap of the 

I do not know what to say to make an adequate 

comparison. I leave it to any of those who have been 
in similar circumstances as I was, after all my tribula- 
tions, metamorphosed into " Byron's " intoxication — 
not from intoxication of liquors, but by the capillary 
attractions of two souls .... 

Now, you know all that I can tell you without vio- 
lating the sacred laws of intimacy. 

Your Birds-catcher, with only a stem flower of Tube- 
rose and a little perseverance and cum dignitate^ and 
reciprocal esteem. 

" Judges and senates have been bouglit for gold, 
Esteem and love were never to be sold." — Pope. 

L. Menand. 



1874, BOSTON, MASS., HOKTICULTURAL 
EXHIBITIOK 



In my exposition of facts connected with horticulture 
I have forgotten some, of which I have been remembered 
accidentally by coming across some medals awarded 
to me by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 

In 1874, for instance: a silver medal for a collection 
of Agarm ! for which to-day, the same society would 
not probably allow one to exhibit, but would rather, if 
compelled to do it, offer a gold one to keep the collec- 
tion at home, 

"Why ? I cannot very well explain that eccentric idea, 
except by some round-about way, circumlocutory com- 
parisons, e. g., why are the camellias since a few years 
ostracized f f Is it because they might engender Mi- 
crobs ? or because they are not ornamental enough, or 
too common, like the Grotons f Or likely for some 
other futile unavowable reason, that some know but 
will not divulge, because the confession would not be 
very creditable 



148 Appendix. 

In the same year as quoted above, 1874, a specimen 
of Croton Wiesemanni, or to be up to the progress of 
botanical science, Codiseum Wiesmannianum or only C. 
Wiesmanni, if the anu?7i termination is found too long, 
however, the two adjectives are contestable grammati- 
cally speaking. I mean Wiesmanni or ii and ianum, 
I was going to say that in 1874, the first prize for the 
best variegated or foliaged plant was awarded to G, 
Wiesmann and it deserved it. 

It was a splendid plant, but not liandsomer than to- 
day, only it was younger, terrible thing to be old, I 
know something of it. 

And what can be said to-day about Camellias ? In 
1844 or 46, two plants of one variety, I think, O. Mrs. 
P. Wilder, came from Boston, hither to Albany, with 
a bill of $24 for the pair ! of Microhs / No ! but Greeks 
for all that, mlcrosGopic, they had a couple of leaves, 
each with 2 eyes — buds that promised to start in the 
future. I was offered one by the owner of them for half 
the price paid $12. I declined, because my means did not 
afford to buy them, yet they were not handsomer than 
to-day. Notwithstanding the whimsicalities of the day 
they are handsomer than one-third, if not more so, of 
all the plants cultivated to-day, including the Orchida- 
ceous plants. Old Fogyism 1 hear, I admit that epi- 



Boston Exhibition. 149 

thet, when it questions a large number of plants whose 
only merit was to be rare and costly^ but not Camel- 
lias or many of the Crotons (not all), and great manj? 
other plants, such as : Medinella Magnifica, Rogiera, 
Toxicophlsea, Thunbergiana, Daphne, Indica rubra, 
Araucaria pubescens, etc., etc. I beg your pardon. I 
forgot that I am preaching in the desert .... You have 
ears but you do not want to hear, so I will close on that 
subject, and conclude what I have to say on that exhi- 
bition. I had also a Phalsenopsis, grandiflora var. aurea 
in bloom on the ITth of September, rather early ^ I 
understood at that time that it was the first one seen in 
Boston. I got a medal for it and $25. I had more 
plants on exhibition, besides those mentioned, but I 
could not compete. The rules and regulations did 
not allow any one out of Massachusetts to do so. 

From that year they altered their by-laws, etc., and 
it was open to all. I never went again since, it was 
too expensive for my means. However, I take great 
pleasure here, to acknowledge that the whole Society 
from the President, Mr. Marshal T. Wilder (I think, 
but I am not sure), to the last members I received 
the most fraternal attention I have ever received any- 
where. 

Let God bless you alU I in imagination and across 



150 Appendix. 

the space that separates us shake your hand with all the 
effusions of my heart. 

The young Anthophilus of nearly forty years ago — 

of old time, now an old man, a geron a senex^ but 

always cordially yours, 

L. MENAND. 



" CONFESSIONS,'' " GARDENEKOLOGY" 
AND "MISCELLANEOUS." 



Please, let me draw my breath for a few minutes, 
then I shall continue my narration 

Now, behold ! my friends : I begin to believe that 
I have recounted enough of my recollections, and that 
it is high time I should come to the peroration of my 
long spinning digressions, more or less edifying, but 
rather the latter, and close the sluice of my overflow- 
ing loquacity on that subject, and by resuming what I 
have told you of my life as a man and as a gardener, 
etc., etc. 

Have you ever been impressed with the idea that 
the profession of a gardener is somewhat extraneous 
in the existence ol a man ? Of a gardener ! Yes, of a 
gardener ! ! That interjection seems to surprise you, 
ioi 1 fancy from your hypothetical silence, that if you 
had anything to say, you would say this : What the 

d does he mean with such question % Well, 1 

mean (ae I have no false modesty, and do not wish to 



152 Appendix. 

be as reticent as you are), that a gardener who has the 
will — the determination — can be a very important 
item in the community at large. 

From the beginning of the world up to this day, they 
have acted in the comedy of human Hfe very important 
parts. First and foremost, I must proceed by grada- 
tions, and be careful not to say anything that would 
exalt too much your pride, as gardeners, as well as the 
rest of mankind, are not exempt of vanity in the occa- 
sion. I want to convince you, as I am convinced my- 
self, of the importance of our profession. Who was 
the first gardener, before our grandmother Eve was 
born? Adam, is it not? "Well, who cultivated the 
first garden ? The Eden garden — not the Eden gar- 
den of New York city, but the true, genuine, " Eden 
Garden " of old time ! I now forget in what part of 
the globe it was, exactly ; but I think it was not 
in our Western hemisphere ; but you know what 
I mean 

Who planted and cultivated the first apple trees? 
God ! you will say. I admit that, of course ; but who 
took care of the orchard ? Always Adam ! And with- 
out any attendant ; he had no foreman ; he was alone ; 
he had no boss but God, and God had given him 
" carte-blanche ; '* he could do what he pleased ; besides 
I understand that God did for him, when needed, what 



Gaedenerology. 153 

lie lias done for me, six thousand or more years after. 
He, Adam, had to work hard to keep every thing in good 
condition ; and at that time there were no ploughs, no 
agricultural implements of any kinds, as to-day. I am 
not sure, even, if he had a spade, and a scythe to mow 
the lawns. Sometimes he fell asleep on the grass, and 
it was during one of those naps that God^vW^di one of 
his ribs to make our mother. Eve, in order that he 
should have an helpmate, to assist him in his light 
agricultural and horticultural operations ; such as pick- 
ing up fallen fruit among the grass, and after a more 
intimate acquaintance to become his " Phanerogyne^^ 
and then to study cryptogamy — pshaw ! I meant to 
say " progeny !*' for I do not believe there were any 
cryptogamous plants then ; even the science of progeny 
was not known ; and this last science must have been 
known and well understood before any one could study 
the first cryptogamy .... and a useless one, almost, 
and an aristocratic science. While " progeny " is the 
science '^ par excellence," even superior to arithmetic, 
for one must be expert in the former before he can 
study the latter ; for without that " divine science,^ 
" progeny," that " sine qua non," without which noth- 
ing can be had, here^ I feel the itching of scribendi, 
loquendi et cognoscendi, to write, to talk, and to know, 
especially, what was the variety of the apple cultivated 
on the grounds of Paradise. I would be willing to 



154 Appendix. 

give something to know it. The reason I speak of that 
here, is, that I have asked a professor of theology, said 
to be vrell posted in " Genesis " affairs, and he told me 
he knew nothing about, but suggested, with an appear- 
ance of sound logic, that our fraternity, gardeners, po- 
mologists, and other " sui generis " of that description, 
ought to be more apt to elucidate that enigma than 
theologians, who only concern themselves with God's 
direct affairs, and not with such accessory trifles as 
knowing the names of what he grew in his country 
seat. I really feel much disappointed, for I expected 
to be able to get the right name of that apple, or orange, 
that tempted our first mother, and communicate it to 
you. Some one has hinted to me that that apple 
might have been an orange, but I do not believe it. 
I know there was, in old time, a celebrated garden 
called the " Garden of Hesperides," where the apples 
were oranges ! That substitution of one name for an- 
other might have answered for the OlympiG Gods, but 
it will not do for us practical profanes and rather scep- 
tical although we have in our mottled fraternity some 
fellows that are apt to try to make us swallow pills 
of aloes and rhubarb, for aperitive lozenges, and they 
often succeed, but you may be assured that it is not 
for those tricksters that I am puzzling my mind to 
let them know the name of the Eden's apple. They 
might try to change its name and sell it to some inno- 



Gakdenekology. 155 

c^nt for an evergreen, ever-hearing golden pumpkin, 
and they would find customers ! I 

Gardeners have also acted remarkably well in the 
city of Babylon under the reign of the Queen Semi- 
ramis, to lay out the famous suspended gardens of that 
city, where stood the celebrated Tower of Babel, 
whence came the confusion of languages. I have 
never heard of the peach, and apricot, plum trees, 
etc., etc., trained as espaliers on the surface of those 
immense walls, 60 miles in circumference, 87 feet 
thick, and 350 high ! If the gardeners of that time 
have grown trees to cover those walls on the whole 
surface, I must congratulate them, and own that they 
have distanced our modern gardeners by as many 
miles ahead as their walls were higher than ours only 
I should like to know how high were the ladders they 
used to train the trees ? I fancy I hear some fellows 
say : Mr. Menand ! we like jokes, but you carry them 
too far. Now, my friends ! I wish you to understand 
me, I have not measured those walls, as you, I do not 
believe they were so high. But I have copied those 
descriptions from what you name " Holy Scrip- 
tures " ! ! ! If you do not believe in them I can not 
help it, that is your business. Only I will pass the re- 
marks, that if you disbelieve " Holy Writs " you will 
compromise your salvation ? This incredulity of yours 



156 Appendix. 

annoys me, because I have not got through my narra* 
tion on the subject I am writing, and if you do not 
believe it is useless for me to waste so much paper, at 
all events I will finish to scribble this page. Noah, 
also, somewhat belonged to our fraternity, however, he 
was more a specialist, he grew grape vines, as many 
of you only grow roses or carnations, every one has 
his hobbies. His hobby was what to-day we call 
cenophilist) in plain English, a grape grower, not table 
gra_pes, but varieties of grapes to make wine oinos. 
He was a good old man, but some of his contempora- 
ries, likely jealous of his successes in grape culture, 
said he was still more fond of the juice of the grape, 
than of the cultivation of it, and besides that he had 
another hobby, more soientifiG, but no better if not 
studied with moderation and judgment. He studied 
the laws of '^ gravitation,^^ and with such zeal that 
often he was found lying on the ground, trying to take 
his centre of gravity. I do not know if he ever wrote 
anything about that science gravitation. All 1 know 
is that he taught our ancestors to cultivate the grape, 
and that alone deserves his name to go to posterity, and 
the gratitude of all those thousands of people who 
grow the grape on a large scale. 

But where gardeners have been famous it is from the 
decline, the fall of the Roman empire. During the 



Gakdeneeology. 157 

dark days, the middle ages, until the French Revohi- 
tion in 1792, then they became eminent^ as gardeners 
in the convents, especially convents of the feminine 
sex, where no men were admitted, but some of that 
craft. Is not that creditable to us ? We must be en- 
dowed of some virtue we are not aware of. I know 
we are somewhat expert in the way of vegetable pro- 
creation, and, also, a httle in the animal procreation, 
but, in what, some of us, excel, it is in the procreation 
of plants nomenclature. I wish I should know them. 
I would, with pleasure, write their panegyric in glow- 
ing expressions. I can not quote anything particular 
of the prowesses of any of our friends in those con- 
vents, but I have read a great many stories and even 
^^ histories'''* of their capacities in many ways, but you 
would not believe me — you would think I am joking, 
consequently I shall not say anything. But, another 
incident in which I am concerned, and which I hope 
you will accept as true. It is a reminiscence of what 
you have partly read before. That Lady, for whom 
I have been gardener over six years. She had been 
in a convent until she got 16 or 17 years old. Then 
her parents entrusted her to a professor of procreation 
(a husband) who completed her education. She did 
not give me any information about the gardeners in 
that place, excent that they grew excellent Green-Gage 

plums — " Eeine Claude," the queen of all the plums, 
14 



158 Appendix. 

by name and quality^ and that it was there she learned 
toj)reserve them in Brandy, candied with sugar / the 
souvenir alone of those plums makes ^' my mouth 
water." I have never since '^ eating -drinhing''^ such 
delicious thing. '^A Daisy ^^ would say a certain 
Scotchman friend of mine. I say ''^ Celestial ! ^"^ In 
1878, when in Paris, my wife, and one of my daugh- 
ters, searched all the most renowned confectionery 
stores to find them, 2irA failed^ and I, on my own side, 
did the same, with the same success — failed. Is not 
this long digression a sin f but a venial one^ and I con- 
fess it. ITow that WE have eaten — and drunk the 
plums, in imagination, let us return to my Lady, and 
her maid, both Qx-nuns. At the advent of the first 
empire of Napoleon, the 1st, they had lived in Paris, 
frequenting the court, and when came the downfall of 
that same empire in 1815, they came in that convent 
or monastery, where I was monk and gardener. I 
cumulated the professions, but I had only a salary for 
one, and for my monkish, or monachism, I had jplums 
in Brandy. I had some, also, as a gardener. I had 
the control of them while on the trees. ! I forgot 
that same blessed Lady and her maid treated me well. 
I tell you all those little nothings, to corroborate what 
I have said about gardeners as an exception from other 
profession. Those two nuns of that worldly nunnery, 
practiced hospitality to that extent, that one day after 



Gardenerology. 169 

I had parted from some gardeners- visitors — they came 
to me and told me : Louis, why do you not treat your 
visitors with more cordiality ? It was the custom then 
in the country, at that time, to offer dinner to any one 
(in my category) who came, and always some distance 
from their homes. You treat them very unceremoni- 
ously ; you always give them ordinary wine ; why do 
you not give them some sparkling champagne ? I do 
not for many reasons. Firstly, I do not particularly 
care for most of them, who, in the occasion, would call 
me heretic, hlood drinker^ etc. As for the other ones, 
if I should do it, they would tell the other ones — the 
cold-shouldered^ who would call me an aristocrat^ with 
accessory epithets, so in order not to deviate from my 
principles of equality I treated them all alike : " Equal- 
ity before my lawP Not the government's laws that 
deny me the right of voting because I paid no taxes, 
etc., and I worlc for a salary ! Does anybody work 
for or without no salary ? Yes, I did worh for salary, 
but many get salary and do not work at all ! ! How 

do you call that law ? I understood at that time, 

that the test country in the world for high salary and 
often nothing to do was old England, but I suppose 
there are good many other nations where they have 
such workers — where there is nothing to do, and good 
pay ! ! However, I did not care much for any of them, 
not that I had any dislike for them, but their ideas, 



IGO Appendix. 

their principles or manners did not sympathize with 
mine. I liked solitude, and they did not. When 
alone I could soliloquize, even dialogize. I put a ques- 
tion, a dilemma, and I solved them myself, without a 
judge. Was it not like in a convent ? But it was 
about the same. Only the few nuns were old — 60, 
65, and perhaps more, and young ones were out of 
reach, so I was almost a saint, although I heard some 
one, in speaking of me, say : that I was ad...., with 
a meliorating adjective, such as a fellow good or bad, 
but such an epithet does not disturb the equanimity of 
young philosophers, for I already began to philoso- 
phize, for just at that time my Lady, my employer, asked 

me one day : " Mr , The gardener, or Mr. Louis," 

I forget. Why, when you write to my son, why do 
you not address your letters "Monsieur Le Baron! 
De Mont," — Mr. the Baron of Montgenet ? Because 
I do not know what a Baron is. Madam ! You know 
very well what it is, but your silly notions of Democ- 
racy forbid you from calling him by his title. Is it not 
so? Well, Madame ! I confess it is so. I know what 
it means for me — it means zero — nothing, and I think 
it is more silly than my Democracy, which means 
"power of the people." I know all these empty 
words, such as Baron, Duke, and so forth, but you, 
Madame! you do not know that the "Convention 
Nationale " — that memorable, that grandest political 



Gardeneeology. 1(51 

assemUy that ever existed^ that did not play duchs and 
drakes with flat stones, have abolished all the titles ! ! I 
without any exceptions. But, I add^ that if it or they 
had not done it, I would do it on my own authority 
and resj^onsibility without paying any dispense to the 
Pope ! When I write to your son, I address my 
letters as the French politeness requires it — " Monsieur 
Montgenet." He has never complained of it, but if 
he does, I am very sorry, but I cannot help it. I must 
abide to the laws, although I have little respect for 
many of them. 

My friends ! from what I have told you of my be- 
havior in that convent I have been thinking, on reflex- 
ions, that you might be impressed with the idea (and 
I am slightly afraid of it) that my doings there were 
not very exemplary, if I have not exaggerated one way 
or the other. I have not'y all I have told, recounted 
to you, has been to the letter except in writing. I 
have selected my expressions but I did not change the 
meaning of the facts or circumstances in any way or 
manner. If I had always acted as I have told you, 
notwithstanding they cared for me, I could not have 
remained there over six years. The life of humanity 
is somewhat like the atmosphere we live in, change- 
able. For a certain lapse of time we have fine, bright 
weather, then suddenly we get cloudy, stormy, rough 



162 Appendix. 

weather, then fair again. So it was with me, but as a 

rule the atmosphere was serene ! and if you should 

analyze all I have related, you will be convinced it must 
have been so. 

I made up in devotion, zeal, attention, not solicited^ 
what I was deficient in temperament. I cannot tell the 
particulars of many incidents, it would be too tedious 
even for me, and much more so for those who may 
read them. Only one instance out of many. We had 
many thousand square yards of soil to remove two or 
three hundred yards off to build a greenhouse, and all 
that in wheelbarrows. No horses could be employed, 
it had to be done by bipeds. It was the heaviest job 
I have ever had on my hands. I had four or ^yq, 
sometimes six men, each one with a wheelbarrow, and 
I filled them up as quick as they could carry them. 
When we began the son of my Lady employer, told 
me and those men, with me, too, that I could not con- 
tinue steady. It was getting late in the season and 
I was very anxious the work should be done, so that it 
stimulated my courage, and to stimulate more effica- 
ciously the energy of my co-bipeds our old Lady sent 
us, on the spot we were working, a large jug of wine, 
with bread and cheese, for the men to eat and drink, 
ad libitum between their meals of course, when eating 
and drinking. They had to rest of course. It amused 



Gardenekology. 163 

me wonderfully to see the way they twisted a piece of 
bread and cheese and swallowing the claret. Those 
men were feasting, and I, looking at them, so that we 
were all enjoying, every one his own way, the son of our 
prioress of the convent asked me several times ** why 
don't you eat and drink like those men, you work as 
much as they do and more." That may be so, but 
those men do not eat as much good solid food in two 
or three days as we do in one meal. What those men 
drinh esjpecially and stimulated them would have had 
the contrary effect with me, " the drinking especially." 
I have always talked a great deal and probably oftener 
more than necessary, but never under the influence of 
liquor. I have always been in dread to hear any one 
speaking of me and saying of me 2,'&\ have often times 
heard people speaking of men under the influence of 
liquor say *' That man is drunkP It is not him who 
speaks, but the liquor, he is drunk. I am not very 
sure if 1 have not made the ohove remark about drink- 
ing to warn you that all I have said from the beginning 
of my prolix narrations of my recollections, digressions 
and the rest is to let you understand that all I have 
said comes from the heart, not from of a hottle, unless 
the bottle of ink. 

So that I will come to the conclusion that, as I have 
told you has been, partly to indulge my notions, to let 



164 Appendix. 

off the surplus of steam that would condense in my 
head; this last is a hygienic prescription with me; and 
to try to convince you, as I am convinced myself, that 
gardeners have many chances to improve their material 
and intellectual conditions ; more than many of other 
professions, if they are a little willing to observe the 
circumstances in which they are, and use their tact and 
judgment, and not go forward too quick, according to 
my observations. In that said convent, where I had 
been cloistered over six years, I have almost always 
acted diametrically opposed to everybody else. I was 
surrounded with bigotry, hypocrisy, superstitions, ig- 
norance, jealousies, etc. I have criticised, laughed, 
sneered at many of their religious performances, would- 
he morality, etc. I suppose that often I have hurt 
the feelings of many, and yet after a while, on reflex- 
ion, they have always acknowledged to me that I was 
right. Even since I have come in contact with people 
of all classes of society in my business, I have had some 
diflSculties with some of them, even rupture, but after 
a few months or years, they have all come and told me 
that We I had been wrong. I have always said that 
I had heen sorry ^ but in the same circumstances I would 
do it again. They included me in the We^ but I did 
not admit the association, I have followed my own 
lines, like Gen. Grant did, only I have not reaped as 
many Laurels {Laurus nohilis, sweet hay), as he did, 



Gakdenerology. 165 

and the few I have left nobody wants them to-day. 
I have to deck myself with, or use the leaves as a condi- 
ment to flavor " Beef a-la-mode,'' or other dishes ; that 
which is rather unglorious but b, palatable if not as 
glorious as a sword scar across the face. One can't 
have everything. . . .be a Hero and have good dishes 
though both might be ... . Now, my friends and co- 
laborers, let us (if you feel toward me as I do 

toward you), shake hands, for it is probably the last op- 
portunity we shall have to do it, at least on this sub- 
lunary planet ; as to the one above, I have only 

hope 

Cordially yours, 

L. MENAND. 

P. S. Allow me, before we part, to salute you with 
the French formula of the Revolution of 1792, just a 
century this year : 

** Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Forever — for — Eter- 
nity !" 

Anthophilus, 

Of nearly forty years ago, alias 

L. Men AND, in 1892. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 



Candidly, I tliought I had recounted every incident 
of my life worth relating. -When yesterday returning 
from Albany, in the electric car, and in passing oppo- 
site the original spot of my debuts as a florist, etc. — 
the, now, Aged Men philanthropic Asylum, on the 
Albany and Troy road, I was suddenly and forcibly 
reminded of the legendary reputation of that building 
as being a " Refuge " of the spooks, ghosts, and hob- 
goblins of the town of Watervliet, in 1842, and prob- 
ably long before. We had hired the place for five 
years. We hardly were moved in than some of the 
few and far apart neighbors informed me that they 
were surprised that I had hired the place for such a long 
lease, that nobody could live in it but a short time, 
on account of the aforesaid progenies of the devil, 
rather week minds, or something equal to it. The 
speaker of the assembly of those informants told with 
a wonderfully emphatic gesture that he would not 
sleep in it one single night, if he was offered a 
IjOOO dollars ! ! Was not such a disclosure an appal- 



Hactnted House. 167 

ing calamity : in the United States of Worth America, 
in the middle of the Nineteenth Centnry ? Hallucina- 
tions of some poor-minded ignorant people, some per- 
sons will say in justification of the community at large. 
Alas ! it was not so, being obliged to live there five years 
1 had occasion to be convinced mj^self that the credulity 
was not confined in a few poor country people unedu- 
cated, but spread in all classes of society. 

"We had been living in that ghost's refuge for eigh- 
teen or twenty months, I cannot exactly tell. "We had 
two persons living with us, a servant girl, and a man 

.working with me. My wife was almost every day in the 
week in Albany from 8 A. m. to 4 p. m. About that 
time we lost our second child, the first having died in 
Astoria, a few months later we had a daughter, the 
oldest one of seven boys and girls, six living with me or 
near me now, 1892 — we had to get a nurse, a large, 
stout, immense woman, whom from the appearance 
one could have supposed she could nurse up half a 
dozen, still the child did not thrive well. She slept in 
the same room with my wife on a cot bed at the foot 
of my wife's bed. One morning early I went in the 
room to see how they were all, mother, child and 
nurse, when in a great excitement — a flurry — said 
that she would not sleep in that house another night, 
for any thing in the world, that the greatest part of 



168 Appendix. 

the night she had been tossed or rather heaved up as if 
by the swelHng of waves under the cot-bed, not a very 
disagreeable sensation I should think, but frightful for 
her, understand : that, that woman must have weighed 
225 or 250, so you may imagine what a strong ghost 
or devil it must have been to lift her, from that time 
she never came any more in the house but in day time, 
but she never neglected to divulge the incident of 
having been tossed by spooks and everybody believed 
the story as she did herself, and every one wondered 
how it was that neither of us four in the house did 
not hear any thing, but I heard from my young man, 
who saw all the folks round us, tliat we were French 

folks who did not care for the spooks or the devil and 
perhaps we had some fellow-feelings — sympathy for 

them, or else they would not have spared us any more 
than our mammoth Venus. That monumental nurse 
and her family at that time had to move back in the 
country near the Shaker Yillage of Watervliet, whither 
we had to send our child, her mother not believing in 
the possibihty of nursing a child without the breast of 
a woman. I object strongly, in one sense, not thaty 
the breast was not the most natural in principle, but 
that the constitution of such a nature, a mass of in- 
flated flesh was uncongenial to the nutrition of a weak, 
a delicate child materially speaking, and then probably 
worse mentally speaking, nursed up by a mind haunted 



Haunted House. 169 

by the existence of ghosts, of spooks impalpable, in- 
tangible things infusing her blood in the system of a 
frail being, it was unnatural, monstrous! In a few 
weeks the child was dwindling to nothing, when my 
wife began to be impressed with my idea and said : 
we must bring her home, but did not think she would 
ever get any better, that the nursing bottle would not 
be any better, but in a few days the progress of the 
child regaining her health was so manifest that she 
got almost convinced, not quite, that was natural .... 

Subsequently in the course of multiplication she 

tried again herself, .but in vain. . . .and hereafter all 
the children we have had were raised by the artificial 
breast and all have done well, never been sick except 
as ordinary children illnesses.= Now that my hob- 
goblin digressions are over, let us return to those be- 
lieving in the existence of such vagaries. During the 
four years we remained amongst those harmless im- 
aginary beings we had the visits of three or four 
parties from Albany and Troy, two especially I remem- 
ber well, one a gentleman from Albany whose name 
was Mr. Mitchel or such name. I think he kept the 
Congress Hotel where the Capitol is now. The place 
was advertised for sale and he had an idea to buy it. 
After a few words of introduction he asked me about 
the location, the quality of the land, etc., to all these 

informations I answered categorically, minutely to 
15 



170 Appendix. 

satisfy liim, but I perceived by his manner, his coun- 
tenance, that there was something else, he hesitated to 
mention .... looking at him I began to think about the 
ghosts, but I could not believe that such a fine looking 
man, with such an intelligent appearance could give 
credence to such silly stories ; but always with hesita- 
tion he asked if the place was healthy ? if the house 
was quiet f if no trouble in it ? etc. — , then I began 
to look at him seriously and asked him if he was serious 
in those declamations, ultra-sensible^ not to use any 
other more appropriate expressions, I went on — I told 
him the place was healthy, at least we had never been 
sick, that the house was a solid one, well built on solid 
slate rock, and no trouble anywhere except in the 
vacuum in our pockets and a well without water, but 
any quantity of toads. . . .Well he replied, that's not 
what I want, I want, then he got a litte more ex- 
plicit .... Many folks say that your wife has lost her 
health, etc too silly to be written here. 

Only ''the phrase": My vnfe having lost her 
health ! I could not very well digest it without burst- 
ing with laughing, that which I did with all my heart. 
Then I told him in good humour and with a good deal 
of compassion. Is it possible, sir ! that an intelligent 
man as you seem to be should believe in such stupidi- 
ties . . .my-wife-having-lost-her-health-through-the-me* 



Haunted House. 171 

dium-of ghosts, or the devil ! ! ! Well, sir ! she has 
never kept her bed one second^ except, when she 
brought forth young defenders to our common country, 
and that / do not believe was or had been caused by 

the inter/erence of any diabolical agencies unless 

.... I .... O ! God — have pity for us ! 

This first visitor went away in a very bad humor, 
partially, because he really wanted the place and that 
my railleries had not convinced him but half, if any at 
all. One thing certain he did not buy it, and ulti- 
mately I was punished by the proprietor blaming me 
for having spread the report of the place being holy- 
ghosted in order to prevent him selling it. If you 
have read the story understandingly you may judge ! 
Yet later I had to pay a forced fine for it, you shall see. 
Shortly after the visit of that innocent man, another 
came from Troy, equally a wide-awake one, judging 
from the appearance, but he did not listen to my jest- 
ing8 as patiently as the former, and he abruptly made 
his exit, from a few words he was grumbling as he 
walked away, I supposed he did not like my sarcasms, 
but I think he had as much faith as the former, and 
both must have come to the conclusion that my in- 
credulity was interested, that I did not want the house 
should be sold, for if it had according to my agree- 
ment I would have had to give up the house and gar- 



172 Appendix. 

den, with some compensations, etc. But the fun of it 
we wished all the time to be out of it, not on account 
of boarding the spooks gratis ; but we were tired of 
the prospect before us of slow starvation. I must 
abridge my narrative and tell you how I was punished 
for my trifling with hobgoblins and for the credulity 
of those believing in them. The whole farm, 18 or 20 
or more acres of land, barn and dwelling-house, were 
valued $500 rent a year, or the house and two acres of 
garden $300, with the taxes for what I occupied, this 
last part of the farm ; afterward the proprietor would 
not allow me any thing, saying that the whole taxes 
were on the house and garden ; that sort of argumen- 
tation did not suit me, and I said that the valuation of 
the whole concern, farm and garden, was $500, and 
that I occupied for $300. I would pay accordingly in 
that proportion, three-fifths ^ and he two. He would 
not hear it, and stuck to his former intention. Finally 
our lease expired, 1st March, 1847, and we moved 
where we are now. A short time after we left his 
place, he married his daughter to a Trojan, who came 
to live in the house when we hardly had moved onr 
relics. That man was not a proselyte of ghosts, for he 
came to see me to buy some shrubs, and we had a talk 
about the spirits. " Well," he said, " I will fix them all 
right / if any, they must be in the crevices of the old 
walls, and I will paper them all over (he was a hang- 



Haunted House. 173 

ing-paper dealer) and fumigate the wliole building 
from cellar to garret." The fact is, that from that 
time we never heard any thing about the house being 
disturbed. That sensible man's reason settled the 
whole, except my litigation with my ex-landlord, who 
had given me an order for some flowers, I think for 
the wedding of his daughter with my successor ; but 
since that time he never came to me after, for the set- 
tlement of my arrears of rent. I had sent him a bill 
for them, but he said he would never pay me one cent, 
for besides the money I owed him and not paid, I had 
wronged him a great deal for spreading all over that his 
house was haunted. You know? — what had hap- 
pened ! So you see I was punished for having laughed 
at people's credulity. However, the difference be- 
tween us was not much. So ended our intercourse. 
He has gone to heaven, since many years. I may 
see him there — if I go, which is % 

L. M. 



SKETCH OF A MODEEN DISCIPLE OF 
LOYOLA (BORN IN 1491). 



It has been, it seems my destiny {ANAFKWY ^s 
Yictor Hugo has it, that from my cradle to my grave 
I have been predestined more or less to come in con- 
tact with some disciples of my inspi7'er — of these 
sketches : " St. Ignatius of Loyola," the founder of 
the " Jesuits Order," canonized by the Pope Gregory 
the X F., and later suppressed by the Pope Clement 
the XIY. in 1773, still "floruit " in 1892 ! ! 

Bad institutions are as noxious weeds hard to de- 
stroy. In consequence thereof, we must do the best 
we can, if we cannot totally eradicate the evil, to keep 
off from it, that which in my particular case, is what I 
have not always done, to my bitter shame, and I hum- 
bly confess it, and beg absolution for it — rather late ! 
true^ but to excuse me if I fall back on the English prov- 
erb " Better late than never." Perhaps that procras- 
tination to avoid bad company has been beneficial to 
my morality if to nothing else. 

* English, Ananke — Destiny, fatality, force, compulsion, etc. 



A Modern Loyola. 175 

Here I begin to feel that my exordium to my dis- 
course in relating the incidental anecdotes I have in 
stocks, is long enough and that I must come to facts. 

In the period included between 187- and 188- I 
cannot be precise. I had one day the visit of two per. 
sons, whose external appearances looked to me as per- 
taining to the clerical profession; one of them 
especially, realizing my ideal of a Catholic priest in 
his outlines, that is to say from head to foot, in his all 
individual, dress, countenance, a rubicund — glossy — 
lookiDg face, and with all that a sort of intellectual 
? I cannot very well find an adequate expres- 
sion to define the thing, only, I fancied that there was 
something not genial a sort of coarseness in the whole, 
in the course of time I found that my suspicions were 
real, too much so, ten times under my approximation. 
You will be able to appreciate it when we come to the 
performance of the actor — Artifex dolosus! , . . . etc., 
etc., etc. 

However he introduced himself as a man well posted 
with botanical technicalities, that which drew my at- 
tention, and he seemed to be aware of it. He con- 
versed fairly enough, but his elocution did not seduce 
me, true, I was ill disposed to do him justice. I up- 
braided myself for being so prejudiced against him, 
bat I could not help it. 



1T6 Appendix. 

In the long run of onr intercourse I always studied 

his ways, manners, etc., in hopes to find something that 

would touch some chords of my heart, but I never found 

any thing but asperities, rough ^acting, and yet you 

could not strictly apply him those monkish rhymes — 

" Mel in ore, verba lactis, 

** Fel in corde, fraus in factis." 

** Honey in his mouth, words of milk, 
'• Gall in his heart, and fraud in his acts." 

" For he had no honey in his mouth, nor milk in his words, 
" But he had surely gall in his heart an^ fraud in his acts or 
actions" L. M. 

In spite of all my efforts I could not overcome cer- 
tain feelings, not exactly of antipathy but not of 
sympathy as I understood it. 

Nevertheless we looked all over the garden, green- 
houses, etc. He knew good many plants and spoke 
knowingly about them, finally we parted and he asked 
me if he could come again. I told him he might come 
whenever he pleased. 

Sometime after, I can't tell precisely how long, he 
came again with another person, he found me at the 
potting bench handling some Cacteacse just imported, 
and almost before he had spoken a word to me he 
took one of the labels off one plant read it and told 
me : that ! is not the name of a plant ! it was a com- 
pound name of two greek roots, I told him the mean- 



A Modern Loyola. 177 

ing of one of them, not knowing the other one at 
that time, and I told him next time you come I will 
tell you the other half of the name until then you 
have better go to school and learn before teaching, 
I gave him that advice in a pretty rough way, he felt 
it and I did not pay any more attention to him. 

A number of years after he came again with an old 
acquaintance of mine. I thought they were two 
friends but they were not, the moment I looked at 
my Loyola I said here is my teacher of names but I 
was not materially sure, as it was a warm day and I 
knew my old acquaintance was a sort of aquatic plant, 
who could not stand long dry I went for some drink, 
I just discovered that my chap was more or as much 
fond of wine as of holy water, thus while drinking we 
began to talk with animation, while — I was analyzing 
him to convince myself that I was right, our conver- 
sation was waxing warm in exchanging some argu- 
ments of all sorts. I think I had just recounted an 
anecdote about a priest and a bishop, about Latin and 
drinking. Here is the story. A Bishop had company 
at his house and one priest of his diocese who was one 
of his guests, at breakfast the bishop had some wine he 
considered good and wished to know if his guests 
appreciated it. So he asked his priest a connoisseur 
in wine and also in Latin linguistic. Well, Mr. le 



178 Appendix. 

Cure ! said the bishop, how do jon like my wine ? the 
priest answered briefly " Bonus Vinum,^^ " good wine." 
On that affirmation the bishop said to himseK " My 
God ! " I have a priest in my flock who is not very 
strong on Latin grammar, he does not know how to 
make agree a noun with an adjective and only two 
words ! but he did not say anything before the com- 
pany, in order not to mortify the priest before the 
whole society present, I shall question him apart. At 
the supper on the same day and the same company 
the bishop ordered the very best old wine he had in 
his cellar. When the time came to drink it our 
bishop asked again to his Cure, how do like this wine 
it is different of what we had at breakfast give me 
your opinion. He, the priest, rose from his chair and 
said emphatically his glass in his hand (he had tasted 
it before) ''Monseigneur, Ecce Bonum Yinum!" to 
the health of the whole company ! our bishop was — 
much surprised — confounded to hear his priests drink- 
ing his wine with so much enthusiasm and praising it 
in good Latin^ he could not stand to wait longer, so he 
asked : Monsieur le Cure ! Will you please tell me 
why this morning when I asked you how was my 
wine you said '''Bonus Yinum^^ and to-night you say 
" Bonum Vinum " ? 

He the priest answered coolly, " Bon vin, bon 
Latin " — good wine, good Latin. 



A Modern Loyola. 179 

{Bon vin and hon Latin rhyme in French.) This 
morning I have said bonus instead of honitm because 
the wine was of inferior quality, and to-night the wine 
being superior I say bonum, not bonus, just at that mO' 
ment 1 was like the Bishop, I could not wait longer so 
I asked : Are you not the man who came to visit me 
many years ago? No, he said, Mr. Menand, I have 
never come to Albany or Troy before to-day ! So in 
face of that affirmation I could not tell him he lied, 
notwithstanding my moral convictions. We continued 
to drink and talk and I recounted the incident of " my 
Latin Post scriptum'^^ I have related before in my 
recollections. Then he put his hand on my shoulder 
and said : " You ! Mr. Menand ! you — have — done such 
thing as destroying a letter of a priest. I answered 
that I had done it and was proud of it His remark 
convinced me he was a priest, but not that he was the 
man who had visited me twice before. It was not a 
very long time after, that in a moment of mental aber^ 
ration^ for Jesuits ! who seldom forget themselves, al- 
ways on the lookout to entrap any body — hody and 
soul ! and more than hoth if you have it, little or much 
(money). This last article is equal to God in their re- 
ligious statutes and dogmas. ^* I^ervus belli pecunia," 
" Money is the nerve of war," whether you wage it, 
(war) to nations or to consciences ! it does not matter as 



180 Appendix. 

long as you can get what you aim at. It will be right 
if crowned by success. 

*' Craftiness and shame from oil conditions rise. 
" Act well your part, there all the success * lies." 

— Parodied from Pope. 

Night came and my visitors left, and nothing but 
empty bottles, but as a compensation my head full 
of fragments of conversation that were revolving in 
my brain as to suggest to me what I should do to 
elucidate the darkness of my ideas in reference to our 
visitors. 

The following week one of the two (my old ac- 
quaintance) came and gave me explanations about their 
meetings, etc. Shortly after they came together again 
or separately, I am not positive — they were three, one, 
the third, was, I suppose, a companion — some asso- 
ciate of the young Loyola, as I have always understood 
Jesuits do, having so much confidence in each other's 
uprightness..,. As customary with gardeners who 
always want to keep their ideas damp lest they should 

wilt I brought some wine, then, talk about plants, 

principles, morality, etc., etc. At once, as quick as 
lightning, our Loyola had a large clumsy -looking pipe 
in his hand and filling it with tobacco I Need I telling 
you that I felt somewhat queer ^ quirer ! even a little 
mad ! and I foresaw a coming storm but the flash 

* Honor is of no account in priestcraft affairs 1 



A Modern Loyola. 181 

produced, lighted my dormant philosophy and reason 
and instead of exploding one of my mental torpille 
(torpedo), it instantly made me calm as a tomb and 
waiting for sensations. I had not to wait long, in a 
few seconds our unceremonious follower of the worthy 
St. Ignatius was sat on a rocking-chair that was in one 
corner of our office communicating to a hot-house, and 
began to puff his not overfragrant tobacco smoke, 
whose stinking effluvia were going up to over a 
window in the top of which I had my " Motto 

" Deus Nosque etiam nobis hac otia fecerunt." 

" God and we also have given us this leisure " — 
English of above. 

He sat directly opposite the visual angle where was 

the name of God ! . . . . and seemingly enjoying seeing 

the smoke almost obscuring the name of God from 

reading. When, in a voice and diapason I shall not 

attempt to describe, not being a musician, I asked 

him if that motto in Latin and English was correct ? 

He hardly took his pipe out of his mouth to tell me, 

he thought it was, and added " you have found — that 

— phrase — in — some hooks !! .... you hear ! readers if 

any ! but you cannot hear the roaring of my soul^ in 

that moment, if I had not contained with all my energy^ 

my wrath that man would not be alive to-day, and yet 
16 



182 Appendix. 

/ Tte^t cool^ relative!}^ speaking, and having my heart 
burning. Then I told him " do you — think — if — 
during — all — my — life — time — I had — been — 
smoking — a — dirty — pipe — and — worse — tobacco? 
God would have given me given us these leisures we 
enjoyed in this very room ? ? he made no answer, but 
I continued my bitter-sweet admonition vSithQr caustic, 
hurning my heart: Ministers of God, if you will 
show me any hooh where you have seen this expres- 
sion of my veneration to the supreme " Unknown " 
God ! I will furnish you all your life-time with your 
dirty occupation, tobacco and wine also. Though it is 
not so many years that immoral incident happened, I 
cannot recollect the sequel, I think the whole party 
went away and that he never replied a word, dreading 
an explosion . . 

A long time elapsed before he came again, but he 
did that which I did not expect. !N'ow I cannot help 
to think that many who may have read these lines I 
have written about such a man, and continuing an 
intercourse with him, may think I am not much more 
dignified than he was. I have said so myself more 
than once, yet his visits here continued sometime later, 
even after I had discovered his lying to me, when he 
said he had never come to Albany or Troy before that 
day he had confessed it to one of ray sons by asking what 



A Modern Loyola. 183 

had come of a certain plant he had seen in such place 
years ago, that he could not see it any where. My 
son knew nothing of it ; he had never seen nor heard 
of the plant, besides, two of his friends came hither 
and told me that he had come hither many years ago 
and that they ought to visit me that they would see 
many things they would not see any where else, l^ow 
I must finish my confession, and that man's doings as 
a priest. He would not eat meat on a Friday, even 
on Wednesday. I once, without knowing what day it 
was, I offered him some Italian dainty called 
" Mortadella," some prepared ham — he would not 
eat it, because it was Ash Wednesday, yet he would 
not hesitate to lie any day in the week without scruple. 
However it is the recollection of that circumstance 
that brought our rupture for ever. I had very nearly 
taken him by the arm and shown him the gate of our 
grounds and tell him to clear as quick as he could walk 
but my reason, my philosophy, if you please, but more 
than that, my sudden remembrance of my long shame- 
ful intercourse with him prevented me kicking him 
out, for I found in my conscience I had been as wrong 
as he was, in my tolerating him, true, only on account 
of his being fond of plants, and that I could discuss 
linguistic with him. His ultramontane theories had 
become so intolerable that I made up my mind to turn 



IStt Appendix. 

him out in a gentlemanly way, that which I did. The 
last word I addressed him as he was going out with 
my maledictions, but no kicks (material) but some men- 
tal ones as Jesuit ! Tartuffe^ Loyola ! jmis jEternum 
Yale ! — Adieu forever — Then he went off. 

A few hours later when I went in the house I wrote 
to him a short but {'accented) letter, in which, I told 
him — can't recollect the expression, but here is 
pretty nearly the sense. . . . 

I hope God will forgive me for having acted so 
long such a shameful part. You with your coarse^ 
vulgar manners, hypocrisy, hellish Jesuitism, etc., and 
I with my complacent, stupid behavior listening to 
your sophisms like. . . . from this day all intercourses 
between us are at an end .... Finis Improbus ! ! 

It is all over, wretch ! 1 



AN ESSAY. 

(Extract from the New York Horticultural Society's Report, 1883.) 



By L. Menand. 



Mr. J. Y. MiirJdand, Sec'y: 

Dear Sir : — I regret much that the reading of the 
eon tents of the Philadelphia " Florist " has not con- 
vinced you that I onght to refrain from writing any 
thing on horticultural subjects for publication. You 
wish an essay on a special popular plant, the very thing 
I am incompetent to do, for many reasons. Firstly 
I have no propensities to be an essayist, in general, 
and in particular on a specialty. I am no specialist, 
but, on the contrary, I am a staunch eclectiG — therefore 
I could not confine myself to discuss on one subject 
alone. I would be very apt to jump from one to the 
other, and let my vein overflow my reason. And that 
you do not want. But supposing I could and should 
try to bind my mind to talk about one single topic — 
plant. What plant? All popular plants have been 
more or less ably treated. Eoses, bulbs, ferns, orchids, 
etc. Nothing left but one of my hobbies, the ostra- 



186 An Essay. 

cised cactece^ or other succulents, more, or equally in- 
sipid things to the aesthetic palates of your epicure 
philophytes ! ! lovers of plants and flowers, with 
wooden legs (stems) and other ornamental ligaments. 

And these last are specialties, if any, especially the 
cacti. Yet, their protective spines would give us flor- 
ists a good supply of vegetable pins to prop our floral 
productions. An essay on our Horticultural Society, 
that has been done. All I might do, and that which 
is more congenial to my feelings and turn of mind, 
would be to try a few digressions on what I think the 
best ways and means to promote the success of the 
society. But to elucidate one's ideas on such a delicate 
theme^ and as I understand it here, means : improv- 
ing the MORAL of the society and at the same time to 
teach how to grow the " root of all evil " and good, too 
(that PLANT ROOT bcloDgs to my school, eclecticism) on 
a large scale. For, without that sine qua non, that 
nervus belli, that universal panacea ! no success to be 
expected, and even with that somewhat doubtful to 
realize. For, before cultivating that %iniversally ap- 
preciated vegetable, we must prepare the compost in 
which it will have the chance of thriving, without 
bruising the feelings of sensitive people. There is the 
stumbling-block to avoid. J3ut, it strikes me that my 
preliminaries are getting lengthy euough. Shall I con- 



An Essay. 187 

tinue? If you answer affirmatively I shall try — 
'^mind^^ I donH say I will, to be less confused and 
enigmatic in my narrative, and " If you choose that, 
then I am yours withal," 

It occurs to me that before preparing the materials 
for the cultivation of our root, it would not be out of 
place to recall to mind an episode — a reminiscence of 
a " Horticultural Exhibition,^'' the first one I have 
attended in my life — in America — in Brooklyn, in 
1840. I now forget the locality and even partly the 
plants exhibited. There were not many, h\xt passahle, 
even good for the time. Then, the Camellia and 
Dahliomania, fever fanaticism, which you may pre- 
fer, were reaching their paroxysm. It was a furor, a 
rage, as the Orchidemy, Orchidomania, epiphytal 
fanaticism of our days. Nothing was worth looking 
at but a newly grafted camellia, with one or two leaves, 
and occasionally a few more, or — Dahlia cutting, in 
three or four-inch pots, selling $1, $2, $3 to $20 apiece. 
We saw one plant (a dahlia), named Ne Plus Ultra, 
sold for twenty dollars to a gentleman still living in 
Boston. That Ne Plus Ultra was, and proved to be, 
a first-rate humbug. The possessor of that plant, 
Mr. George Thorburn, of New York city, had bought 
it in England for the moderate price £10, for one root. 
Does not that make a dahlia grower's mouth water! 



188 An Essay. 

After seeing the plant in bloom he ordered it to be 
thrown away. He did not wish to deceive anybody 
any more. By the way, the six best plants at the ex- 
hibition spoken above came from his place, Astoria. 
I only recollect the name of one : Pimelea decussata, 
a rare plant then, and perhaps rarer to-day. That plant 
found warmer admirers than wished for, for some one, 
through distraction^ I suppose, took it away with an- 
other plant, and the year after he fonnd both plants in 
Fulton Market, New York, and bought them again 
from a woman selling plants. The art oi prestidigita- 
tion was already flourishing, and we think it has im- 
proved since that time. These digressions do not help 
me very materially in exposing my views on the means 
of ameliorating the elements of success of our Horti- 
cultural Society. The truth is that I don't know how 
to begin without ruffling the equanimity of our friends, 
if I have any ; however, I live in hope to have some, 
even if I castigate " qui bene amat bene castigat."* I 
understand that we are going to have a new hall for 
our Horticultural Exhibition, without depending on 
anybody. This will be of much more importance to 
success than my overdrawn phraseology^ but every one 
does what he can, or thinks he does. If so, we gard- 
eners^ nurserymen^ florists, and all parties interested in 
horticultural affairs ought to understand each other 
when we meet at exhibitions, or elsewhere, not to keep 
* Who loves well chastises well. 



An Essay. 189 

our energies, our vital powers, in too much excitement, 
in too moist an atmosphere, if I may use a technical 
gardener'' s expression, but Iceep ourselves as we do 
orchids when they have perfected their growth — keep 
comparatively dry, until the blooming season, then 

And above all, let us not indulge in hoasting of what 
we coidd have done, and what we shall do, but do it 
to the best of our ability, and never tell any one : I 
will heat you, but if you chance to do it, let us wait 
until the defeated parties tell you so, and we will find 
it much more gratifying than self -praising, and if by 
chance, what may very probably happen, we should be 
disappointed with potent reasons, let us not show our 
displeasure, if we can ! and swallow our mortification 
and prepare our energies for a new contest. Mankind 
is not infallible — judges, from want of knowledge or 
otherwise, may err, that is human. 

One supreme recommendation I would propose. It 
is : as nine-tenths of us gardeners are foreigners. 
Yankeefied Americanized, of coiirse, and assuming 
that in the emergency we would like to wrap ourselves 
in the folds of the star-spangled banner, and the eagle 
soaring over this immense continent, that home to all 
of us, never say : We have done this or that in the 
old country — at home, at Lord^s So-and-so, but let us 



190 An Essay. 

do it here, in this earnest home^ not a home by virtue 
of a short or a longer lease, but by virtue of liberty 
and industry. Where liberty dwells there is our 
country ! 

One word more to the address of gentlemen's gard- 
eners. Do not indulge too much in saying that your 
employer does not like or care for such and such plants, 
merely because you do not lilce them yourselves, and 
he has never told you so. He has got the plants and 
he pays you to take care of them, that is sufficient 
reason to do it. A man does not keep a gardener to 
do exactly what he likes. He, the proprietor, also 
wants something — some compensation for the money 
he pays, and for which sometimes he does not get one 
cent of satisfaction for hundreds of dollars spent. I 
speak ex cathedra — from experience. 

It is not very long since I heard a certain chap say 
he wished such ruhhish, plants he did not like — were 
on or under the manure heap, that he could not bear 
their sight, and would be glad to see them all dead. 
And he has in a measure acted accordingly. There 
would not have been so much harm if he had taken 
good care of those he did not dislike and his employer 
cared for, hui they were all treated alike. To kill a 
plant, a palm, an Araucaria, or such, because they do 
not bloom in winter, to cut flowers from, or such irra- 



An Essay. ♦ 191 

tional remarks, is about as sensible as if the possessor 
of a fine picture threw it away because the personages 
represented in it do not speak ! In another instance 
I have heard one of those planticide gardeners, in 
presence of his employer, who had just bought an 
orchid in bloom, that he was lovingly carrying on his 
arm when he passed the remark, in looking at a Pim- 
elea Hendersoni he also wanted to buy : "If 7 huy 
them, that fellow," pointing to the gardener, " will kill 
it ! He will kill them ! " To that remark i]iQ planti- 
cide replied quietly : " I would rather have a plant to 
which I could apply my knife than that Pimelea and 
Orcliid." It seemed that man preferred to apply a 
knife to a plant than his skill. But likely he had the 
former and did not possess the latter, and did not care 
to. However that man had the courage to express his 
opinion in a very frank manner. It appeared to me 
that he had some good qualifications, for when he had 
killed a number of plants, his employer said that he 
would readily dig up a hole to bury them, or if in 
winter and the ground was frozen too much he would 
resort to cremation. 

Having had the presumption to give friendly hints 
to my confreres, I feel the velleite — the temptation 
of offering some to gentlemen keeping gardeners, and 
on the ^'ground^^ that I have occasionally heard some 



192 An Essay. 

of the former expressing their desire of cultivating- 
certain plants — orchids, for instance, but that they 
only had one greenhouse or hothouse, and not a special 
one, as required for orchids, at least their gardeners 
said so, and they seemed to believe it themselves, and 
especially when they may have heard that half a dozen 
houses are necessary to grow with success that family 
of plants. Orchids — well ! it may he, after all, that 
I am wrong, and that a series of such plant dwellings 
would greatly facilitate their cultivation. But how 
many lovers of those plants can and would afford the 
means to do it on that line ? Yery few, indeed. I, 
for one. I would be scared, even if I had the means 
to do it. Six houses exclusively for orchids, without 
the admixture of other plants ! That gives me chills ! 

— fits of " cacoethes loquendi " — itching — of talking 

— of expressing my opinions, as our friend \hQ planti- 
aide, spoken above. Why should I not express my 
Tanhee notions or YanJceefied ideas, as well as any 
one ? Well ! if \h\^ privilege, no ! right! is granted to 
me, / her^e, emphatically and with all my profound 
convictions hased on a little experience, and with all 
due regard and deference to all parties, including tlie 
elucubrations of theorists on that specialty, I affirm, I 
maintain, that orchids can be cultivated in a mixed 
collection of plants — tropical or others. Of course, 
tropical orchids with miscellaneous tropical plants, and 



An Essay. 193 

80 on, for all categories of plants. And if any one 
imbued with the contrary idea will pay me a visit I 
shall try to convince him, or them, of their error, not 
in idle talk, in which I perhaps indulge too muchy but 
by and with material facts. 

I have said that orchids can be grown in a mixed 
collection of plants and (if no other way of heating) 
heated with the old antiquated flue system {ii properly 
constructed). Old fogyism^ I fancy I hear some one 
murmur. Old ! I admit it, no matter what sympathy 
I may cherish for old things. I donH recommend, it. 
But I say that with a little good will^ a little more 
hrain and intellectual oil, and, ahove all, not depending 
too much on hiped machines — on jour assistants — 
on your men, but try to be men yo^irselves — to be the 
" deus ex* machina," and you will find the machinery 
will run smoothly enough, abstraction of unforeseen 
accidents, of course. 

Here I was to close my verbiage, when a sudden 
idea seizes me, reminds me that I must follow the un- 
dulating current of my conceptions and fill up the sort 
of hiatus, chasm in my above digressions. My mere 
affirmations that orchids may be grown in a mixed col- 
lection of plants, etc., is too loose, too indefinite to 
convince people who thinh for themselves. I feel I 
must explain myself in a more explicit manner. We 

* The main spring of the machine. 

13 



104 An Essay. 

liave been told that half a dozen or so of different 
structures are necessary to cultivate orchids success- 
fully. This number of residences for one single family 
of plants seems to me too extravagnant, too lavish. 
The mere enumeration of the names of those dwellings 
congeals the blood of my, perhaj)s, overheated under- 
standing, as much so as do the long lists of florists^ 
flowers^ myriads of nnmeauing names to fill up cata- 
logues of '' capita mortua^'' dead-heads^ or next to ; a 
difference in names and prices only^ a catch-penny 
trap. I think I will be liberal, generous, in allowing 
this aristocratic family of plants three residences {un- 
less it should be composed of many generations — in 
that case it would require more room), and on one con- 
dition — that it will live in peace with other hetero- 
geneous families, such as Crotons, Dracmnas^ etc., etc. 
— a hot-house for Phaloenopsis Yandas, Angmecum and 
congeners, kept as recommended — minimum heat by 
night in winter, 60, 65. A few degrees, more or less, 
will not hurt any thing, unless it should be the notions 
of some horticulturists ; but this will not injure the 
plants if well taken care of. One intermediate house 
(with the same reserves as above, sociability with each 
other) kept 50, 55, 60. This sort of halfway house 
will answer for resting or retarding some plants, if not 
kept too moist .... And one cool house, ^. e,y 
that you will keep as cool as you will be able to do it, 



An Essay. 195 

from Jime to September. This last eefuge, will uot 
require more than 40 degrees in winter (and occasioQ- 
ally less); a few degrees less will do no harm. In this 
house we have had some few degrees helow freezing 
point for a few hours^ and Cjprij3edinms and Cselo- 
gyne cristata were not hurt. But we wish to be un- 
derstood that we do not advocate the practice to let the 
frost in the house. 

I shall not go into more particulars about the man- 
agement of orchids or other plants, because I sup- 
pose that any moderately intelligent gardener knows 
the A B C of cultivation of plants in pots, etc. I do 
not suppose they need to be instructed how to sharp 
their knives when paring cuttings, or how to arrange 
draining materials in a pot, etc. These stereotyped^ 
silly dictums can be found in all elementary Books on 
Horticulture, But I would like to bring to the at- 
tention of every one — the sacred as well as the pro- 
fane — the facts or sentences mentioned in the " Essay 
on Orchids." " That in many instances the proper 
treatment of plants (orchids) and others, I suppose, 
has been arrived at by ^ accident ' — chanced Potent 
words to he pondered on^ as well by professors, theor- 
ists, as by students and learners of all classes. To study, 
to analyze, if possible, the causes of accidents smdfaiL 
teres, as well as those of successes, and compare the 



196 An Essay. 

former with the latter, and then, by synthesis, try to 
frame what yon know of practice and theory in a sort 
of vade-mecum, to guide you in dayly ? (or daily ?) 
routine, and not say, ''It does not or loill not lyayy 
For, how do you know if it will or not without you 
try? You might say you have heard men of business 
say 60, or that you guess. It is very well to guess, but 
it is much better to be certain. Besides, one may fail 
in an undertaking while another will succeed. Since 
some twenty-five years or more my brain feels sore 
from the frequent concussions of that phrase, " It does 
not pay " — words that most of the time have no more 
meaning than a " How do you do " exchanged between 
parties who care as much for each other as all of us 
care for Buddha or Buddhism, An acquaintance of 
mine has often thrust that saying in my face with the 
remark, that if I had done so and so, as he had done, I 
suppose, I would be much better off, etc. ' * • 
A-ccording to that principle, the one who has never 
DONE any thing but what ;pays, and another who has 
ALWAYS done what does not, it would follow that the 
fo7'mer ought to be tetter off than the latter ; that which 
I have not been able to see yet, although I have ob- 
served with a MORAL MAGNIFYING glass / but probably 
my sight is not like that of a great many people, who 
can see an atom in their neighbor's eye. Now, my 
friends, if I was not afraid to have already abused the 



An Essay. 197 

privilege of talking beyond the limits of reason, I would 
like to tell jou some little stories that have some little 
connections with the cultivation of the evil's root. 
You will see, if you allow me to go on. It may pos- 
sibly edify you. I have always^ and I have not done 
what does not jpay or jpays. But the truth is, that I 
have for the last half century spent many days, weeks^ 
months, one, two, three, ten, twenty-five and thirty 
years in growing plants, in rearing, besides plants 
(some intellectual notions and a number of other things 
that need not be described here), that have taken me 
two, three, ^yq, twenty, twenty- five years to raise a 
customer to huy them. As to the other notions, they 
have not been raised in view of making money, for I 
was convinced beforehand that all the benefit I would 
derive would be some moral gratification ; but, since, 
I have made retrospective reflections, that the best pay- 
ing of the two was the '''not paying undertaking ; '' 
and DO NOT believe this a pakadox, but a potent 

TRUTH. 

And, if you please, I will exhibit some facts to cor- 
roborate what I have said. At the time the Brooklyn's 
Hort. Society was flourishing — thanks to the zeal of 
the President, Mr. Degraw — not to the gardeners, 
who, partially, with the h'eaTcing out of the war, 1860, 
Tcnoclied it out of existence, about 1855 or 1856, I for- 



198 An Essay. 

get, I exhibited some few plants. Among them were 
some large Potygalas and Laurustinus, etc. One of the 
last was a plant some 7 to 8 feet high, with its tub, 
and a stem perhaps Zfeet high, and of the diameter of 
a spade's handle, and the head 20 to 21, or perhaps 22 
feet in cirGumference, with flowers enough to totally 
eclipse the foliage. That plant I had coaxed for about 
fifteen or sixteen years. By the way, I forget to tell 
the variety. It was Viburnum nitidum, whose foliage 
and flowers, when well grown, are about double the size 
of tinus, which is " a good jplant^'' notwithstanding the 
declamations of some moral, iiivalid, gardeners, who 
wittily say it is flayed out, used ujp, it does not flower, 
which is about right ^ but whose fault is it, the plant 
or the gardener ? / incline to the latter. Poor excuse, 
when a plant does not do well to say that it is a bad 
jplant. Why not say " a bad gardener^'' as / do when- 
ever I fail. I do not know if Nature has created bad 
plants, but I am pretty certain she has in her evolutions 
produced men with very weah minds. Excuse me this 
overflow, and I come to our topic. A gentleman in 
Broolyn fell in love with that plant, and asked me if I 
would sell it. I answered affirmatively. Then he in- 
quired the price. I told him $100. He said he would 
take it, and he thought that I could afford to give him 
a couple of Ixora Coecinea into the bargain, which 1 
did. On hearing the result of the transaction, a know- 



An Essay. 199 

ing embryo gardener passed the remark that in England 
one could get a Laurustinus for two-and-six and three- 
and'Sixpence apiece. I heard some one asking him if 
they were of that size. Oh ! no, but they would grow 
to that size. When I left Albany with that plant I 
had four or five more large ones — two Polygalas and 
two Laurustinus, but of inferior size. A gentleman of 
Albany who saw them on board the steamboat told me, 
" Mr. Menand, if nobody in Brooklyn or New York 
has sense enough to buy those plants, when they come 
back to Albany, 1 want themP He saw them again 
on our wagon, coming home. He stopped the men^ 
and told them to bring the plants to his house, that he 
had bought them before they went to Brooklyn. 
They did not mind, as I had not given any orders to 
that effect. In less than twenty-five minutes he was 
with me, and told me he wanted those plants that / 
did not care much to sell, although I wanted the money 
as much as he wanted the plants. He added, ^^ 1 do 
not ask you how much you want, but / must have 
them:' 1 think I got $140 or $150, I forget now. 
Was not that cultivating the root? And every year 
since that time up to to-day I have sold contemporaries 
of those plants, and I think it has paid. 

. . . However, successful as I may have been, I 
would not advise any one to follow my example in rais- 



200 An Essay. 

ing such plants alone^ as I have done, and in view of 
making money only. But, if you want, if you wish 
and feel like growing^ cultivating both the " utile dul- 
cis,'^^ the useful and the agreeahle^ two very diJfferent 
crops — one the crop-food for the hody^ and the other 
crop for the mind^ the moral — then I say Oo ahead ! 
Forward ! I En avant ! ! Help yourselves and heaven 
will help you 1 

I have in store many more remarks more or less 
edifying, or perchance soporiferous ; but discretion 
forbids me to say any more — sat prata biberunt. , . 
You have listened long enough. 

Wishing all the members of our Horticultural So- 
ciety, all loho love Nature in all her various aspects, the 
fields,^ the woods, even Orchids, for I am not exclusive, 
I am a sort of pantophile in the vegetable Jcingdom^s 
LINE understood I 

An plaisir de vous re voir I 
Albany, January 1, 1883. L. MENAND. 

* Qui fait aimer les champs fait aimer la vertu (Delille) . 

* He who inspires the love of nature inspires the love of virtue. 



As it has been so often observed to me that my 
name is an odd^ queer name, that I think it necessary 
to elucidate it, though it is as plain English as fluid, 
as limpid as the light of the sun when it shines. It is 
so much plain English that one cannot utter but very 
few words without using half of it, and the tail of it 
too. 

An anecdote about that transparent obscurity 
(etymological): The first time I had the observation 
made to me on that — my — name, it was by a cadet 
from West Point Academy or Polytechnic School- 
I told him it was all English! He said he could not 
see any English in it. Then as I had to do with a 
scholar and a young man of twenty at least, I tried 
to explain the enigma grammatically : Cut or divide 
the name in two parts and read it you will have the 
word men plural of man, homo, vir ! sometimes ! 
then — and, et, a conjunction without which you can- 
not connect y ur expressions, sentences, etc. 

He looked and stared at me, with his mouth half 
opened, but never spoke a word. Whether he under- 
stood me or not I cannot tell. Yet the man appeared 
to be an intelligent man probably with some restric- 
tions as all appearances are apt to be, in linguistic, 
honor, probity, morality, etc., etc. Subject to inter- 
pretation .... 



A PKOLOGUE BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE. 
AN EPITHALAMIUM. 




My Friends, — Our Friends. 



There is to-day exactly half a century 

We have been bound with the chains of matrimony. 

My good half ? oft has said with verity, 

These chains though indissoluble to eternity 

Seem light enough, even pleasant to wear ! 

For her, I dare say, they are gold ware, 

But for the other party, who drags the fetters ? 

Don't you think his lot might have been better 

Than to have been more or less, for years, 

Obliged to listen to her would-be fears, 

Of leaving too numerous a posterity; 

Which, after all, is less than that Adam had the priority, 

P. S. 

Here: I intended to say nothing more of my tribulations, 
Although I have many more in my recollections, 
Therefore, I will close my narration, fear of being checked 
For divulging that I have often been henpecked ! 
Henpecked, have I said ? this is a hard word, I think, 
Even when used jocosely, but when written with ink 
It seems outrageous, if one considers that indiscretions 
May have been the cause of the above castigation; 
However, such is a long usage of subjection, 
That I am wiUing to submit to a repetition 
Of 

So let us rivet the chains again. 

L. M. Oct. 31, '90. 



NOTE ON "EPITHALAMIUM." 



The enclosed lines have been written some two or three years, 
more or less, I cannot tell exactly; in idle moments, in the long 
evenings in winter time — at the time my wife began to talk about 
celebrating our Golden Wedding. I had only shown them to her 
a few days before she died. She read them twice and said " that 
suits me " I will get the document copied in plain handwriting, 

then I passed the remark, what then? She answered me: 

You shall know it in time. A few days after I received a 
proof copy, with the additions suggested by hek, of the allegoric 
Chains, which I had forgotten or rather not thought of. She 
was much excited with the idea presenting a copy to every one 
she should invite, but she was especially so, ' ' to comment " the 
point of doubt afl&sed to the words "m?/ good Tialff' to prove 
she was and had been good without a f but with ! ! !. Alas ! 1 
she has not; destiny, fate, had decreed it should not be. 

By sending the above document I fulfill her desire and also 

mine. A desire much embittered. . , ., 

L. M. 




MEMORIAL 



*' Thou know'st 'tis common, all that live must die, 
Passing through nature to eternity." 

** At death we enter on eternity." 

So Adieu ! adieu ! for ever I 
Adieu ! adieu ! pour toujours ! 

A broken soul 
Une ame brisee. 

L. M. to A. M., Oct. 17, '90. 



ADELAIDE JACKSO:tT MENAND. 

October 15, 1890. 



Not in the fresliness of life's early morn, 
When hope was high and fair life's pathway shone 
With promise of bright days to be, 
A golden glory of futurity — 

Not then the summons came. 

Not when the noonday sun was high o'erhead, 
When summer days fast to the autumn sped, 
When from the hurry of youth's flying feet 
The rest of noon was to the spirit sweet — 

Not then the summons came. 

Years had rolled on and brought that sweet repose 
Which, duties well performed, the spirit knows; 
Peace, rest and freedom from earth's anxious care — 
Age only brought, with crown of silvery hair 

And still no summons came. 

Yet, all unseen by us, her nature grew 
Nearer to heaven — our spirits never knew 
How thin the veil concealing from her sight 
The golden portals bathed in heaven's blest light. 

Nor heard the summons come. 

She heard, — the veil was lifted, all around 
Flowed pleace eternal, — not a sigh — no sound, 
No pain — no fear — no anguish — earth was gone 
And to the raptured soul its heaven was born 

When the blest summons came. 

No tears — no fears — let every grief be stilled — 
Why weep for her, who every task fulfilled. 
Goes to her rest ? pray rather thus may be 
Life's blissful close for us — for thee — for me — 

When the last summons comes. 

ParI, December, 1890. Edward S. Raito, Jr. 



"EEMINISCENOES'M! 

1878. 



Albany, N. Y., Unxted States of North America, January 25, 1878- 

To the Citizen Victor Hugo, Paris. 
Sir! or Citizen! 

I know not liow to address you to be heard from the 
obscure station where I am, to attain the summit! where you are. 
It is half a century (there are forty years I have left France, 
and I should not hurry to visit her, were it not that the Republic 
begins to sJiine there, though with a very dim light, just bright 
enough to read the name of the thing) that your name sounds 
in my ear, and when it is not the name, it is the vibration, that 
induces me to write you to ask you a great favor for me, for us, 
I and my wife, species of Philemon and Baucis, intend to visit 
the Urbs par excellence, Paris. When there, we wish to press 
the hand that has written the chapter (" in the Miserables ") 
" Une Lumiere Inconnue " " An Unknoion Light,'" and very many 
things besides, " Oaumn ! and Cimourdain ! " — 93, ! ! ! etc., etc. 
I hardly hope that you will answer us. At all events, permit us, 
at least in imagination, to press your hand with our hearts united. 

Your sincere admirers, 

L. MENAND and A. MENAND. 



Albany, March 15, 1878. 
To Citizen Victor Hugo. 

Thanks ! many thanks ! our project to 
visit France, Paris, this year shall be realized since you have de- 
cided it, by your answer. I was afraid you had taken me for a 
hunter of autographs, it was not that, nevertheless I am very 
proud to have it in such a circumstance. 

We shall not abuse of your time; just one minute to shake your 
hand and to receive a cast of your flame ! and our desires shall be 

accomplished. Yours sincerely, 

L. M. 



This Fac Simile is the Autograph Letter of Victor Hugo to 
L Menand, written 33 February, 1878. 



yf^ A-* ♦»«^.v 



> 







y 'J^*^ ^^ ^^^^^ 



4^ $^\^^*00^ 



pr. 




7" 



Si vous rfealisez votre projet, je serai cliarm6 de serrer vos mains dans 

lesmiennes VICTOR HUGO. 

Paris, 33 fewier. v iv. x w 

If you realize your project, I shall be charmed to press your hand in 

°^^^^' «« 7:t.. victor HUGO. 

Paris, 33 February. 





T 



" Reminiscences." 

Albany, October, 1878. 

A Whim ! on my return from France. 
To Citizen Victor Hugo. 

Veni, Vidi, Vici. 

Veni ! Oli ! yes ! I liave surely come to see you. 

But the Vidi lias lied I did not see you,* 

And the most mortifying of my deception 

Is that, I shall never have such an occasion. 

As to the Vici 'tis a word too elastic, 

Which reminds me of a certain faith catholic, 

However, I have conquered, the deep conviction, 

That no matter what shines in any old nation. 

And any where, beyond the Atlantic, 

Is less fit to make a philosopher than a sceptic. 

I close, begging you to excuse a semi- Vandal, 

Who dares to address himself to the modern Juvenal. 

P. S. Always more and more — Philemon less the faith in 

Jupiter. 

L. M. 



* He had gone to Jersey not to return till November. 



LOUIS MEISTAJSTD. 
1807 — August 2 — 1877.- 



I. 

Tli0 golden ligTit of August beamed 

O'er fair Burgundian liills, 
The farewell glow of summer streamed 

O'er meadow, woods and rills. 
Tlie fruit blushed warm beneath her touch, 

Grapes felt the mellow glow, 
Kind nature gave with lavish hand, 

'Twas seventy years ago. 

II. 
There, just as sombre night withdrew 

Before the golden morn, 
As the first sun beams drank the dew 

A little child was born. 
Fair nature bent above his bed 

A loving sponsor, kind, 
To claim the infant for her own, 

To guide the dawning mind. 

III. 
She gently led him by the hand 

Thro' valley, field and wood, 
Told how the secrets of the flowers 

Are known and understood. 
From when the violets of the spring 

Bloom in the year's young day. 
Till the pale Christmas roses beg 

The shortening days to stay. 

IV. 

She opened wide her secret books, 

And in his boyhood's hours, 
He, eager scholar, learned by heart 

The lessons of the flowers. 



Louis Menand. 

Made them liis loved, liis bosom friends 

Friends that the dearer grow, 
As years roll on ; loved now far more 

Than seventy years ago. 
V. 
For him, were not life's crowded marts 

The din without surcease 
Of noisy camp, but nobler far 

The gentle arts of peace. 

Adieu, adieu, fair sunny France, 

Home of bis boyhood's day ! 
Where the Atlantic's billows dance. 

The man pursues his way. 
VI. 
To the new land beyond its tide 

The wandering feet have come, 
And where fair Hudson's waters glide, 

Content he finds a home. 
Content for nature still his friend. 

Yields her abundant store; 
There, as his years roll calmly on. 

He knows and loves her more. 
VII. 
Rich blessings spring around his path, 

And as his locks grow white, 
After tbe heat and toil of day 

Life's afternoon is bright ! 
God grant him, in His own good time, 

When comes the close of day; 
To the fair calm of starry night 

His life may melt away. 
VIII. 
That, in the garden of our God, 

Where flowers never fade. 
Where nought that harms, has ever trod, 

Where none can make afraid; 
Where welcoming angels shall entwine 

Immortelles for the brow, 
My friends, may we all meet him tliere 

Say seventy years from now ! 

Edward S. Rand, Jr. 



DEC 23 1901 



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